Sermon for Proper 28, year C
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Tag: sermon
The Next Evolutionary Step
Sermon for All Saints Sunday, Year C
Click here for the biblical readings.
Biological instincts are a funny thing. Our cravings for safety, sustenance, and status evolved as tools for survival, but often they are the very things that hold us back from living our best life.
Let’s take Grog the caveman, for example. Grog was born with an inherent craving for sugars, fats, and salts because he was born into an environment where those things were rare. So it behooved him to eat as much of those things as possible, because he never knew if or when he would come across them again.
Fast forward to 2025, where you and I have inherited Grog’s cravings for sugars, fats, and salts, but live in a very different kind of environment where those things are not rare. So we look at a TV commercial and go, “French fries!” and proceed to eat as much of them as possible, even if we know it’s going to eventually kill us. It’s a mismatched instinct.
So we’re out here living with Flintstone brains in a world of Jetson technology, and we wonder why we struggle. This is true of other instincts too.
Let’s go back to our friend Grog the caveman. He is walking along through the jungle and goes, “Hear sound in bush! Might be saber-toothed tiger! Must fight!” because he developed his fight-or-flight instinct as a means of protection against predators.
But here we are in 2025 with the same brain that Grog had, and we’re like, “Notification on phone! Man on Facebook has bad politics! Must fight!” And we proceed to react as if we ourselves were being attacked by a saber-toothed tiger. It’s not the same thing, and our mismatched instincts are leading us farther away from life rather than toward the preservation of it.
We’re living with Flintstone brains in a Jetson’s world. What we need is a way to take that next evolutionary step so that we can get back to the work of preserving life instead of working against it. Thankfully, that’s exactly what Jesus gives us in today’s gospel.
When we practical-minded people read Jesus’s teachings on the Beatitudes and the principle of nonviolence, it sounds at first like a bunch of impractical, high-minded nonsense. Our natural, God-given instincts for safety, sustenance, and status lead us to want to be rich, full, joyful, and well spoken of. But Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the hated.”
So it sounds like nonsense, as does all this talk about loving our enemies, turning the other cheek, and giving to everyone who begs from us. Our inner caveman hears these things and goes, “No! Bad!”
And yet Jesus teaches them, which raises the question: Does Jesus just want us to fail? It certainly seems that way on the surface, and that’s a disturbing thought.
It might seem a bit obvious and self-serving for me, as a Christian priest, to say this, but I don’t think that Jesus is saying these things because he just wants us to fail at life. I think that what Jesus is doing is pointing us toward the next step in human evolution. Unlike our previous evolutionary steps, which were driven by biology and survival instincts, this next step that Jesus represents is driven by morality and conscious decision-making.
In other words, the next step of human evolution is not biological but spiritual.
Jesus’s earthly ministry was characterized by compassion. The movement he initiated was characterized not by who it excluded but by who it included. Jesus shared his family table with the most despised and outcast members of society.
He used nature imagery to direct his followers’ attention to the divine abundance that exists all around them. He directed their attention to the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, who neither farm nor sow but are still fed and clothed by the God who loves them.
He invited his listeners to consider the sun and the rain, which shine and fall without discrimination, bringing life to the earth—both sinners and saints alike.
Jesus was convinced that this is the way the world truly works, in spite of the walls of human self-preservation that we have constructed around it and through it. Jesus said that, in spite of our egotistical selves, compassion reigns supreme because God wills it.
The question that he puts to us is: What would our lives look like if we lived as if we believed this is true—as indeed it is?
If you are a person of a certain generation, the name Robert McNamara will probably mean something to you. For those who do not know this name, he served as the Secretary of Defense under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. His legacy is controversial, and it’s not my job to either endorse or denounce that legacy. But I heard him say something very interesting about his involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
For those who are too young to remember, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union about the Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba—well within striking distance of American soil. The tension escalated to the point where President Kennedy was considering an invasion of Cuba in order to stop the deployment of these missiles, a move which almost certainly would have resulted in a launch of said missiles, triggering a counterstrike of nuclear missiles on the American side, resulting in the mutually assured destruction of both countries and possibly ending human civilization as we know it.
At the height of the tension, the world was mere minutes away from nuclear annihilation. But Secretary McNamara reported that it was saved at the last possible moment by a cabinet member who used his empathy and imagination to understand what it was that the Soviets really wanted. As a result, they were able to negotiate a diplomatic solution that avoided a nuclear holocaust and allowed humanity to continue to exist as it does to this day.
It is not too much of a stretch to say that empathy, or love of one’s enemies as Jesus commanded, saved the world that day. That’s just one example of a time when Jesus’s teachings proved to be more practical than high-minded.
If President Kennedy had listened only to his basic survival instincts, the game of survival would have been over. But by listening to the voice of empathy, he was able to transcend those basic impulses in a way that preserved life—not only for Americans but also for his Soviet enemies, and for the rest of the world as well. It was the moral principles of Jesus, and not the instincts of Grog the caveman, that saved the world that day.
That’s why I say that Jesus’s teaching is not just spiritual wisdom or high-minded idealism, but the next step in human evolution. We won’t get there by playing games like survival of the fittest, but we will get there by loving our enemies and doing unto others as we would have them do unto us.
Of course, it’s likely true that most of us will never find ourselves in a position where our personal decisions could affect the nuclear annihilation of millions. But it’s a near certainty that we will find ourselves in a position where we will have to choose between the way of self-preservation and the empathic way of Jesus. The repercussions of that decision may not affect millions, but they will affect individual lives—not least of which is our own.
Which impulse will we choose to follow on that day? The broad and well-trodden path of self-preservation or the narrow way of Jesus? Will we stay locked into familiar patterns of the status quo, or take the next step in human evolution? The choice is up to us.
Today, we celebrate the Feast of All Saints—a holy day when we give thanks for those who have come before us in the faith. Those whose lives have been remembered not because they were successful in amassing copious amounts of money, sex, and power, but because they were faithful in choosing the more difficult way of Jesus when it would have been easier to default to familiar patterns of self-preservation.
They are the vanguard who show us the way to embody the teachings of Jesus and take that next step in human evolution in our own day, just as they did in theirs. The Church honors the saints because they remind us that the work of Jesus is not yet done, and the loving power of Jesus is still at work in our lives today.
I have already seen this power at work in you, the people of this congregation. Your creativity, courage, and compassion are obvious to all who walk through our doors, and even to those who have never attended a service but have borne witness to your good works in our wider community.
At no time has this been more obvious to me than it was last Sunday afternoon, when this church was packed to standing room only with people who gathered to give thanks for a recent member of the communion of saints, our own dearly departed sister, Mary Dally.
She touched so many lives in her decades of teaching in this town, and so many of them showed up to pay their respects that I could scarcely walk from my office to the sacristy. As far as I know, Mary never commanded a nuclear arsenal, but I do know for a fact that her empathy and her commitment touched the lives of hundreds—and I know this because I saw them here in this room.
Someone once told me that I should live my life in such a way that there would be standing room only at my funeral. As far as Mary Dally is concerned, I would say: mission accomplished.
The rest of us are still engaged in that mission, and I watched each of you show up and put in the extra work to honor the dead, care for the bereaved, and support the whole community. This is the next step in human evolution, and you are taking it.
Even as we said farewell to one of our members last week and celebrated one saint’s entry into the Church Triumphant, so in a few moments will we be adding two new members to that fellowship on earth, as we baptize Barak and Cyrus into the Body of Christ.
As Mary’s journey on earth is ending, so theirs is just beginning. Our continuing task is to nurture their growth in the faith, support them with our prayers, and be to them an example of what the next step in human evolution looks like—just as we learned it from Jesus.
Continue to be strong in this faith, and keep up the good work. Amen.
Laughing at Ourselves
Sermon for Proper 25, Year C
Click here for the biblical readings
As I was coming up with an opening illustration for this week’s sermon, it occurred to me that the one thing you’re probably learning about your new rector this year is that he watches way too much TV. But then again, maybe that’s just something I’m learning about myself. Anyway, what came to my mind this week was a scene from an episode of the famous sitcom The Office.
And in this scene, the boss was on his way to a very important meeting when he slipped and fell into a koi pond. When he got back to the office, soaking wet, he tried making up all kinds of stories to hide his embarrassment about what really happened. But the thing is that all his rationalizations and excuses just made people laugh at him more.
Later on, when he finally admitted the truth about what happened and started poking fun at himself, people’s laughter started turning into compassion. Instead of making up jokes at his expense, they said, “You know, Michael, that’s really the kind of thing that could have happened to anybody.”
I find that moment in the scene very fascinating. It’s like the situation itself was calling for laughter, no matter where it came from. If Michael couldn’t laugh at himself, then the universe was going to make sure that somebody was laughing about it. But when Michael finally did learn how to laugh at himself, the laughter became a gateway to mercy and understanding. It’s as if laughter had this secret power to unlock the doors of compassion in our hearts.
How like life! When we as human beings stand on the firm bedrock of safe and supportive relationships, we gain the ability to laugh at ourselves. And that kind of laughter, rather than tearing us down or pushing us farther apart, has the ability to build us up and pull us closer together — provided that our relationships do, in fact, stand on that solid ground of safe and supportive love.
As a Christian, I do believe that the entire universe stands on just such a solid ground. When we say each week in the Nicene Creed that we believe that Christ will return in glory to judge the living and the dead, I imagine that judgment not as a verdict in a courtroom, but more like a funny story told around the Thanksgiving table. The embarrassment is there, but so is the love. And that love gives us the power to laugh at ourselves.
That’s how I imagine the final judgment of the living and the dead — not as a sentence to hellfire and damnation, but as a side-splitting laugh at ourselves. Because we learn from Scripture that God is both just and merciful. The one who judges us is also the one who knows and loves us best.
In today’s gospel, we get a glimpse of that justice and mercy in action. Jesus tells a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector. Pharisees, as we know, were very educated and religious people — upstanding citizens and pillars of their community. Tax collectors, on the other hand, were the scum of the earth: bottom feeders, liars, and traitors to their own people.
The Pharisee in this story is doing exactly what we would expect an upstanding citizen to do — holding his head up high in church, listing his accomplishments, and thanking God that he is not like other people, especially this tax collector here. The tax collector, meanwhile, is standing at the back of the church, looking down at his shoes, and the only prayer he can manage to get out is, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
It’s the tax collector, according to Jesus, who went down to his home justified that day, despite his lack of religious or moral qualifications.
Now, what I find interesting about this passage is that at no point does Jesus say that the Pharisee is not justified. Our English translation says that the tax collector went down to his home justified instead of the Pharisee. But the Greek word translated as instead of in our English Bibles is actually the word para, which literally means alongside. So another way that we might translate this verse from the Greek is to say that the tax collector went down to his home justified alongside the Pharisee, not instead of.
And I really like that. Because if I’m really honest with myself, then I have to admit that there is both a Pharisee and a tax collector within me. Like the Pharisee, I too have the capacity to act like a self-righteous windbag. And like the tax collector, I too have the ability to act like a selfish dirtbag. And if I’m being really, really honest, I’m often doing both at the exact same time.
So it’s very comforting for me to be able to read this story as one where both the Pharisee and the tax collector go down to their home justified alongside each other — because most days, both of those guys are coming home with me.
Several years ago, I had a job interview at the hospice agency where I ended up working for several years before I came here. The interview went really well. I came home all excited and ready to talk about it. But then I walked through the door, and my wife Sarah had just had a disaster of a day. Things were stressful at her job, the kids were acting out, and she needed to unload about all of it.
At the end of the night, we went to bed, and she had forgotten to ask me how my interview went. One part of me was seething — this is the Pharisee part of my brain. Except I was imagining him as more like a tough guy from New Jersey. And he said, “Here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna get that job, and you’re gonna work there for like six months, until one day she asks you, ‘Hi, honey, how was the hospital today?’ And you’re going to be like, ‘Lady, I ain’t worked there in six months! But what do you care?’ And then she’s gonna feel real bad about it. Forget about it.”
So that was one voice in my head — the Pharisee from New Jersey. I decided I should name him Carl. So that’s Carl.
The other part of me was not from New Jersey, but rather from the Midwest. So obviously, he was a nice guy, because we Midwesterners are nice people. And this part of me was saying, “Oh, don’t you know, Sarah’s really busy, and she’s worried about a lot of really important things. You’re not that important, so you should just keep your yapper shut. Remember that you love each other and just get back to your darn life.”
I didn’t give that voice a name, but it was more like the tax collector side of me. That’s the part that just wants to stand in the back, look down at my shoes, and make myself small and invisible.
But let’s be honest: if I was to listen to either of these voices by itself and do what it says, would either one lead me toward having a more honest and loving relationship with my wife? No, it wouldn’t.
So instead, I took a deep breath and imagined myself sitting at a table with both of these guys. I let each one have their say, and even wrote out what they said in a journal. Because the thing is, each part of me was actually trying to help me — they just weren’t being very helpful in the way that I needed at that moment.
So I heard them out, listened with compassion, and tried to understand where each one was coming from. And what I ended up doing was sitting down with Sarah the next day and saying, “Hey, I’m sorry you had such a rough day yesterday, but I had that really big job interview with hospice, and it hurt my feelings when you didn’t ask me about it.”
And Sarah, my wonderful wife, said, “Oh my gosh, you’re right. I’m sorry. Please tell me — how did it go?” And I did tell her about it, against the advice of the Midwest nice guy, because I am important to her, even though she does have a lot of other really important things to worry about.
And I also went against the advice of Carl from New Jersey and his elaborate ruse about working a job for six months without telling my wife, because obviously that plan would not have worked — but mostly because I didn’t actually want her to feel bad. I just wanted my wife to take an interest in my life and the things that are important to me and to our family. Which, of course, she does. We all just have bad days sometimes.
I tell this story as a personal illustration of the Pharisee and the tax collector that exist within each of us — because they both do. That’s why I’m glad that the text of Jesus’ parable can be translated as, “The tax collector went down to his home justified alongside the Pharisee.”
At the end of the day, it was neither the religious and moral observance of the Pharisee nor the humility of the tax collector that justified each of them in the eyes of God. It was God’s own mercy that supported them both. The only difference between them is that one of them recognized that truth and the other did not. But they both needed it, and they both got it — whether they realized it or not, whether they deserved it or not.
Kindred in Christ, the same thing is true for each and every one of us today. We stand in right relationship with God not because we deserve it by virtue of our righteous deeds or our honest confession, but simply because we need it, and it is there. We stand in right relationship with God because God loves us, whether we realize it or not, whether we believe in God or not.
We receive love because God is love. And that is the central truth not only of our faith but of our entire existence. And that love is what gives us the ability to laugh at ourselves — when we trip over our own shoelaces, or when we strut around like a bunch of pompous and self-righteous Pharisees, or when we betray our moral values and closest relationships like the tax collector did. Beneath all of that, the central truth holds firm: you are loved, whether or not you realize it, whether or not you deserve it, whether or not you believe in it. It’s still true — for you and for everyone else in this hurting world.
My prayer for you today is that you would come to know this truth more fully for yourself, and that knowing it will make it easier for you to reflect that same love onto the faces and into the lives of the people around you.
Crossing the Impassible Chasm
Sermon for Proper 21, Year C
Click here for the biblical readings
Several years ago, I was working at a job for which I was particularly unsuited. I believed in the mission of the organization I was working for, but it became clear, as time went on, that my skills were not a good match for the skillset that was actually needed in the position I was filling.
The ever-increasing tension led to a concurrent increase in my depression. I would come home from work every night, drained and exhausted and hopeless. It felt to me like there was this huge chasm opening up between me and my coworkers and my family and my friends. Eventually, it got so bad that I felt like I just couldn’t carry on anymore.
Suffering, unfortunately, is an inescapable fact of life in this world, or so the Buddha taught in the first of his great noble truths. One of the hardest parts of suffering is not the pain itself, but the isolation that it creates between we who suffer and those around us. The paradoxical truth is that pain is a human universal, but it makes us feel like we are alone in the universe.
Maybe your pain is like mine was at that time, coming from dissatisfaction with a job or a relationship. Then again, maybe for you, that pain comes from grief at the loss of a loved one. Or maybe it’s the hopelessness you feel when you look at the world through the screen of an iPhone, doom-scrolling through social media as people respond to the nastiness of the world by getting nastier and nastier with each other.
The causes are manifold, but the result is the same. We feel the chasm opening up between ourselves and our neighbors and widening to the point where it feels impassable. That chasm, that feeling of emptiness between us and our neighbors, is where I want to start as we look at our gospel for today.
The impassable chasm between one person and another factors highly in the parable that Jesus tells in today’s gospel. This is a parable about a wealthy man whose name we do not know and a poor man named Lazarus. On the surface, this looks like a story about the afterlife, but the main thing to understand is that it’s not.
Here’s how I know: This is a parable, and parables are never about the surface-level imagery in the story itself. Think about it: The parable of the lost sheep is not about animal husbandry. It’s about the joy that God experiences in each of us. Likewise, the parable of the Good Samaritan is not about highway safety; it’s about the care that each of us is called to give to one another. So, in the same way, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is not about the afterlife. That’s just the surface-level image. So what, then, is it about? That’s what we’re here to talk about today.
I already talked about the isolation that I felt when I was going through my experience of suffering at my job. That experience of isolation, that depression, felt like an impassable chasm between myself and the people around me. In the same way, an impassable chasm appears in this parable between the rich man and Lazarus.
This chasm exists in the afterlife, where the fortunes of the rich man and Lazarus have been reversed: The rich man is suffering in Hades, while Lazarus is resting comfortably in the presence of Abraham, or, as some older translations have rendered it, in Abraham’s bosom. The rich man cries out for help, but Father Abraham tells him that there is an impassable chasm between them that no one can cross.
I think this chasm between them had always existed. It’s just that it couldn’t be seen before, when they were alive. The missed opportunity for the rich man was the opportunity to cross that chasm while it could still be crossed in this life. That, I think, is the point of this parable.
To drive the point home, let’s look at the name of the poor man: Lazarus. Lazarus is a Latinization of the Hebrew name Eleazar, and the name Eleazar translates into English as “God helps.”
God helps. That’s the true message of this parable. That’s the fundamental truth that Jesus was trying to communicate to his listeners through the symbols of heaven and hell, or Abraham’s bosom and Hades, as the parable presents them.
Where is God in the midst of suffering in this world? God is helping. That’s what God does because that’s who God is.
In the wake of the terrible events of September 11th, 2001, one of my spiritual heroes, Mr. Rogers, spoke to the families of America and gave them some solid guidance about what to do when terrible things happened. He said, “When I was a boy and would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
That is the wisdom of Jesus that we find in today’s parable. The name Lazarus literally means “God helps,” and that’s exactly what God does in the midst of suffering that separates us from one another. It’s the opportunity that the rich man missed in this parable, and it’s also the very thing that God did for us in the mystery of the Incarnation.
Christian theology tells us that in the Incarnation, God “took on flesh and dwelled among us.” When humanity was suffering in the isolation of sin and death, God in Christ became one of us — “just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home,” as songwriter Joan Osborne told us in the 1990s.
In Christ, God crossed the impassable chasm between heaven and earth, between time and eternity, between sin and righteousness, between death and life. God crossed the impassable chasm. Therefore, according to Jesus in this parable, we are called to do the same with our neighbors.
Returning to my initial story about the job for which I was so ill-suited: My depression got so bad that my mental and physical health were in jeopardy, so I reached out to my priest, Father Randall Warren of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Kalamazoo, and Father Randall listened while I told him what was going on. He validated my feelings and gave me some unsolicited advice, which was rare for him.
He said, “You need to get out of there now.”
Thankfully, I listened to what he said. I quit my job and spent the next year at home with my kids. It transformed our relationship and helped me to become the kind of father that I had always wanted to be. After that, I entered a chaplain training program and spent the next six years as a healthcare chaplain.
During that time, I was able to get back the confidence I had lost while working in my previous job. At the end of that time, I was able to come back and resume my work in parish ministry as the rector here at St. Mark’s, Coldwater, where I am proud to serve you today and hope to do so for a very long time.
When I was younger, I used to say that I wanted to become a priest in order to be the kind of priest that I needed. But now, thanks to Father Randall, I can say that I want to be the kind of priest that I had — a priest who reaches across the impassable chasm of sadness and suffering with the arms of love. I can never pay back the gift that was given to me by my priest, so I will do my level best to pay it forward to others.
Kindred in Christ, that is what this parable is about. God reaches across the chasm of suffering to reach us with the arms of love and calls us to do the same for one another. This is not a calling only for priests, rabbis, imams, and pastors. It is a job for each and every one of us.
When you show up for a friend or a neighbor who is struggling, who is grieving the loss of a loved one or a job, who is going through a divorce, who is in the early stages of recovery from an addiction or a mental illness, who is suffering from the effects of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or any other kind of social injustice, you are crossing the impassable chasm that exists between the rich man and Lazarus while there is still time.
Friends, I don’t believe this parable is about the afterlife. It is about the way we care for each other in this life. It is about reaching across the chasm of suffering with the arms of love. It is about being the hands and feet of Jesus in the world today. That is what God has done for us in Christ, and that is what we are called to do for each other today.
Amen.
What Matters Most (Rooted & Rising, Week 4 of 4)
Sermon for the eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 13, Year C)
Click here for the biblical readings.
I’d like to tell you about a guy named Alcibiades.
He lived a long time ago, in ancient Greece, way before Jesus was even born. And he was an absolute rock star in his day. He was good-looking, well-liked, and tremendously successful.
He rose to prominence in the city-state of Athens as a student of Socrates, a politician, and a military commander. One night, during a fit of drunken debauchery, Alcibiades and his friends defaced several statues of the god Hermes. This caused an outrage among the respectable citizens of Athens, so Alcibiades turned tail and escaped to their rival city of Sparta.
Now, Sparta was the kind of place where they raised their kids like Navy SEALS, so Alcibiades traded his Athenian Gucci for Spartan camouflage and put his strategic skills to use for the sworn enemy of Athens. It would be like the football coach at U of M stealing their playbook and going to coach for MSU!
While living in Sparta, Alcibiades once again got himself in trouble by getting a little too “up close and personal” with the wife of a local politician, so he went on the run yet again and found himself in Persia. While living there, he used his influence to get himself back to Athens, but even that didn’t last long. He ended up dying in exile, without any friends or allies.
Alcibiades was the kind of guy who could charm the ice off an igloo. Socially, he was like a chameleon, who could change his colors to suit whatever environment he was in. He could be anyone you wanted him to be. Anyone, that is, except himself.
We’ve all probably known someone like that: Someone who takes on a completely new personality, based on who they’re dating. If I’m being truly honest, I can even find a bit of Alcibiades in myself. In fact, I’ve already done it in this very sermon!
A moment ago, I made a sportsball reference… but I don’t actually follow any sports! I only said it because I thought it would resonate with you. In fact, I had to Google, “Who is U of M’s rival” before I wrote that sentence. So yes, we all do it. We are all guilty of hiding or changing who we are because we think it will make us look more appealing to the people we are with. It’s a universal human phenomenon.
Today is the final week in our summer series on the book of Colossians. In the first week, we talked about how we are rooted in love, even when cynicism, fear, and indifference tell us otherwise. In the second week, we talked about how our true self is found in the connection and interdependence we have through Christ. Last week, we talked about how we are already whole and complete in Christ, not through effort but through grace. Today, we are going to talk about what we can let go of, precisely because we are rooted in love, connected in Christ, and saved by grace.
In short, what we can let go of is the insecurity that leads us to put on all kinds of fake masks to impress the people around us.
It’s this fundamental insecurity, this fear that something in us is missing or broken, that leads people to divide themselves into competing groups, point fingers at others, and generally tear one another to shreds in order to make themselves look (and feel) better. The author of Colossians calls this insecurity the “old self” and points to examples like, “fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed.”
Then they keep going: “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language.”
If I were to hold onto this list of moral vices and keep a tally, while watching the daily news and the commercials between segments, I would probably be able to check off each one (multiple times) by the end of the first hour. Some might say this is because America is a hopeless den of sin, but I say that we do these things simply because we are insecure people who don’t know how deeply we are all loved and cherished by the God who made us.
Kindred in Christ, love speaks the truth about who you really are. Colossians says that your true self is “hidden with Christ in God.”
That word, hidden (Gk. kekryptai), doesn’t mean “lost,” but “protected.” It’s like a seed that has been planted in the ground, waiting to grow into a tree. The text goes even farther than that, saying that “Christ is all and in all.” The Bible lists no exceptions to that rule. Finally, the author of Colossians says, “When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”
That word, glory (Gk. Doxa) means “radiance” or “inherent worth.” I look at the faces in this congregation today and I see people who are radiant and inherently worthy of love.
I find these words to be profoundly mystical and amazing. According to this passage of Scripture, Christ “is your life” and “Christ is all and in all.” There are no exceptions listed. In fact, the author goes to great lengths to specifically say that there are no exceptions. In Christ,
“there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free.”
All dividing lines of social class, ethnicity, and religion are rendered obsolete in Christ. We could add to that list things like sexual orientation, political party, immigration status, or any of the other categories that divide people today. None of them matter anymore, when we begin to look at ourselves and each other through the loving eyes of Christ. Christ “is our life.” Christ “is all and in all.” You don’t have to take my word for it; it’s right there inthe Bible!
Friends, the fact that you are unconditionally loved by God is the fundamental truth of your existence. It is who you are. Nothing else matters.
I recently saw an internet meme. I don’t know who originally said it, but I 100% agree with it: “You will never look into the eyes of someone who God does not love.”
Anglican author C.S. Lewis said it a little more eloquently:
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.”
This truth applies, not just to others, but to the person you face in the mirror as well. Christ “is your life.” Christ “is all and in all.” Everything else is just window dressing, so we can let it fall away.
Your job title, your salary, your academic diplomas, your number of online followers, and the number on your bathroom scale are all figments of the collective imagination that we can let go of in the light of God’s immortal love. You are loved. This is the only truth that matters in the end.
When I worked as a hospice chaplain, in the years between my ordained ministry as a Presbyterian minister and an Episcopal priest, I had the solemn privilege of sitting with many people in their final days and hours of life. In all that time, I never heard a single person brag about their net worth or their worldly possessions.
What I heard them say, again and again, is four things. And I’m not the only one to notice these four things that people say at the end of life. Dr. Ira Byock, a palliative care physician who works with dying people, noticed people saying these same four things and wrote about them in a book called, The Four Things That Matter Most.
The four things that matter most, the things that people say on their deathbed, are:
- I forgive you,
- Please forgive me,
- Thank you, and
- I love you.
At the end of our lives, when all of our worldly accomplishments and artificial categories are being stripped away by our impending death, the four things that matter most are: I forgive you, please forgive me, thank you, and I love you.
Dr. Byock asks,
“What would it be like if we said these things, not just when we are dying, but throughout the entirety of our lives?”
Our faith gives us the power to do just that.
The purpose of the Christian faith is not to get us ready for heaven after we die, but to enable us to live in heaven, at least in part, before we die.
If we live our lives in the belief that we are loved by God, we will have the power to let go of the made-up categories that divide us on this Earth. We will be able to “strip off the old self,” as the author of Colossians says, and live in the reality of our true self, which is Christ: beloved and loving, rooted and rising in love. Just as Jesus Christ was during his time on Earth, so are we in our time.
You are loved in abundance; therefore, give love in abundance. This is the central truth of the Christian faith. This is the truth that I hope you have heard during our summer sermon series on the book of Colossians, and it is the truth that I hope you will give to the world for the rest of your days.
Amen.
Jesus & the Wood Wide Web (Rooted & Rising Series, Week 2 of 4)
Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 11, Year C)
Rooted & Rising series, Week 2
In 1919, just after the end of the first World War, the Irish poet W.B. Yeats penned the following lines:
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Yeats was lamenting the spirit of his own time, when crowns, creeds, and customs seemed to be drowning in the rising tide of modern advancement. Yeats expressed concern about what new thing would rise to take the place of traditional social values. As it turned out, his concern was justified.
The years following the composition of this poem saw the rise of Communism in Russia, where the Soviets overthrew one iron-fisted regime, only to replace it with another that was just as oppressive. In Germany and Italy, fascist dictators seized power and manipulated their citizens into committing unspeakable acts of genocide. Even W.B. Yeats himself flirted with similar authoritarian movements in his own native Ireland.
When things seem to be falling apart, it is only natural to want to grab onto some source of comfort that promises to maintain a sense of normalcy. The temptation to watch out for in such moments is the temptation to force solutions through the exercise of raw power.
Strongmen take that opportunity to exert their will over the people by scapegoating those who dissent or differ from familiar norms. They claim that, by electing their party to office, impeaching the president, deporting immigrants, and somehow stopping people from being gay or trans, they can lead the country back into some imaginary golden age that never really existed.
The Stalinist purges of Soviet Russia and the book burnings of Nazi Germany have this faith in common. Hitler came to power by promising to protect Germany from the threat of Communism. Stalin came to power by claiming to save Russia from Fascism. This should tell us that the problem is not “right vs. left” and the solution will not be some kind of Satanic compromise between Hitler and Stalin. The problem is much deeper and simpler than that.
What these dangerous ideologies have in common is a shared faith in the power of power itself. They both claim that the solution to the problem of social disintegration is more control over people. The epistle to the Colossians disagrees with that conclusion.
Today’s epistle reading forms the theological core of the book of Colossians. Biblical scholars sometimes refer to this passage as “The Hymn of the Cosmic Christ.” In this passage, the author is talking about Jesus, but not the carpenter from Nazareth who started a grassroots movement on the back roads of Galilee. The Jesus that this passage talks about is Jesus as the early Church began to see him in the years after his death. In the eyes of these first Christians, Jesus was more than just a man who started a movement; he was an icon of the meaning of life itself.
The text says:
“[Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers, all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Colossians 1:15-17
The Jesuit priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, one of my personal heroes, takes this passage very seriously. He says that Christ, when looked at through the lens of faith, is the Ground, Guide, and Goal of the entire universe. In the New Testament book of Revelation, the Cosmic Christ says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end” (Revelation 21:6). Therefore, the solution to the problem of disintegration is not an increase of control, but an increase of connection. This flies in the face of every partisan ideology that human beings have thus far conceived. In continuity with the historical Jesus of Nazareth, the Cosmic Christ says that the answer is not to “get rid of those people,” but to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
So, I’ll say it again: the solution is not more control, but more connection.
To illustrate this solution, I’d like to take you into the forest, beneath the apparently separate existence of individual trees. Underneath the surface, scientists have discovered something that stretches between the root systems of these individual trees. It’s called the mycelium.
The mycelium is a vast communication network of fungus that connects the trees to one another. Through it, trees are able to share information and resources with one another. Older trees send nutrients to younger trees through the mycelium. Trees infected by parasites send warnings to their neighbors about the infection. What’s even more amazing is that this network is even able to send messages between trees of different species. For this reason, scientists have begun referring to the mycelium as the “Wood Wide Web.”
If you go walking in the forest today, you probably won’t be able to see it with your eyes. It lives beneath the surface of the ground. The most you might be able to see is the fruit of the Wood Wide Web, which takes the form of mushrooms, but these are not the web itself; they are but the fruit of it.
In the same way, humans cannot directly see the Cosmic Christ “in whom all things hold together,” but we can see the fruit of the Spirit, which is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Millennia before the invention of computers, these moral principles kept human beings connected to each other around the world. It’s amazing to realize that modern technology is still trying to catch up to what the Holy Spirit revealed centuries ago.
The Cosmic Christ has always existed. Today’s epistle reading calls the Christ, “the firstborn of all creation,” that existed, “before all things.” Spiritual author Richard Rohr writes, “Christ is not Jesus’ last name.” He describes “Christ” as “another name for every thing.”
Christianity is not the first or the only spiritual tradition to recognize this all-pervasive presence in the universe. Greek philosophers talked about the Logos as the organizing principle of the cosmos (in fact, that’s where we get the word logic from). Similarly, Chinese philosophers spoke of the Tao as the un-nameable flow of nature. Hindus and Buddhists refer to this mystery as Dharma. For our Jewish neighbors, the Torah is not just the first books of the Hebrew Bible, but the divine Teaching that has been woven into the very fabric of creation.
Logos, Tao, Dharma, Torah, Christ. One song, with different lyrics, but the same music.
For Christians, the ineffable mystery of the Cosmic Christ is revealed through the historical Jesus of Nazareth and the traditions that rose up around him. Most notably, we encounter the presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. In this mystery, the fruits of the Earth, which have been shaped by human labor into bread and wine, are received by the priest, consecrated as the Body and Blood of Christ, and then given back to the people, who receive the Body of Christ into their own bodies. It’s like the dieticians are always fond of telling us: “You are what you eat!” In this case, you are the Body of Christ.
The grace of this Sacrament has profound implications for how we are to live our common life, as members of the Body of Christ in this fragmented world, where things so often fall apart. To us is given the faith that “all things hold together” in Christ, not by the force of human will, but by the grace of God’s all-inclusive love.
When you, the members of the Church, come down the center aisle to receive Communion each Sunday, I know the particular struggles that many of you bring with you. Most of the time, they are questions to which I don’t know the answer and problems to which I don’t have the solution, but I choose to believe that the moment I look you in the eye and place the Body of Christ into your hand is an important starting point, from which we can begin to form those answers and solutions together.
W.B. Yeats wrote, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” but we, the members of Christ’s Body, dare to defy Mr. Yeats by proclaiming that the center does hold. The center holds, not by forcing control, but by receiving Communion with God and each other. We need not rely on the empty promises of self-proclaimed saviors of any political party because the truth is that we already have a Savior who has promised to give us all things necessary as we “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).
Kindred in Christ, our Communion is our connection. Beginning with the Sacrament, it extends outward to small and large acts of mutual aid between ourselves and our neighbors.
The offer of free childcare to a single mother, the ride to the doctor for a cancer patient, the quick phone call to check in with an elderly shut-in, and the shoulder to cry on for a grieving widow are all powerful acts of love that have the power to change the world. Not all at once, but slowly and surely.
These things don’t make for good television or headlines. They won’t win elections or solve the big problems of the world, but they still matter. They matter in the eyes of God. And I know, for a fact, that they also matter in the eyes of those for whom you care.
Last week, I made reference to the words of Samwise Gamgee from the Lord of the Rings films, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien. Today, I would like to do the same thing again, quoting this time from the wizard Gandalf. Once again, this line comes from the movies, but does not actually appear in the books.
Gandalf says, “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”
Friends, I invite you to go out into the world this week, looking not for self-proclaimed saviors from the right or the left, who promise in vain to exert their control over the world and hold it together by force, but looking for the already-present Christ, in whom everything holds together by the gentle power of love.
As Christians, we do not place our faith in the empty promises of any politician, party, or platform; we accept Jesus Christ as our only Lord and Savior, and it is to Christ that we will be faithful unto death and beyond.
Amen.
From Cynic to Samwise (Rooted & Rising Series, Week 1 of 4)
Sermon for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 10, Year C)
Back in the 1990s, we used to have a famous TV show called Seinfeld. On that show, there was a character named George Costanza, played by Jason Alexander. If you’ve never seen the show, all you need to know is that George was a miserable and selfish little man.
One day, during a child’s birthday party, George noticed that a small fire had broken out in the kitchen. Rather than reach for a fire extinguisher, George screamed at the top of his lungs, “Fire! There’s a fire!” Naturally, the whole room of kids erupted into chaos at that moment. And George, rather than calmly directing people to the nearest exit, proceeded to shove the kids to the ground and step over them as he ran out of the apartment.
Later, when the parents of those children confronted George about his selfish behavior, George proceeded to defend his actions and twist the facts, claiming that he was not a coward, but a hero and a leader. George was cynical, fearful, and completely indifferent to the needs of other people.
After his pathetic attempt at self-justification, a firefighter stepped up and asked George, “How do you live with yourself?”
George replied, “It ain’t easy.”
If you’ve seen the show, or even if you only know George through the story I’ve just told, you’re probably shaking your head in disgust right now. But the truth is that there is a little bit of George Costanza in each of us. In the very least, I am absolutely sure there is in me.
When I turn on the daily news, I often feel terrified at what this world is becoming. In a vain attempt at self-protection, I take up the shield of sarcasm and fasten the breastplate of cynicism over my heart. And then, when I am thoroughly suited up, I turn a blind eye and an apathetic heart to the suffering of those around me. I pretend that, if I can’t feel it, it isn’t real.
Fear, cynicism, and indifference claim to be the defenders of human life, but in reality, are the enemies of the human spirit. Thankfully, there is a better way to defend both our lives and our souls from the onslaught of danger that the world sends our way.
Scientists have recently discovered that biological evolution is far less random and competitive than they previously thought. To be sure, random mutation and competition still play a role, but they are not the only factors that matter. As it turns out, evolution seems to be moving in a direction: toward greater and greater complexity of life. Single-celled bacteria gave rise to multi-cellular organisms. These multi-cellular organisms formed complex ecosystems and organized societies, which leads to the second stunning realization: That cooperation is at least as important to the progress of life as competition. We previously thought that evolution was only about “survival of the fittest,” but it turns out that it is also about “survival of the friendliest.” A single Neanderthal hunter cannot bring down a wooly mammoth by himself, but a cooperative hunting party can! It’s like they say: Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime; teach a community to fish and everybody eats! We can do more together than any of us can separately.
This is not just a biological fact; it’s also a biblical truth.
Today’s epistle reading, from the New Testament book of Colossians, shows us how to counter the negativity of cynicism, fear, and indifference with the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.
To begin with, we need to look at the context in which the book of Colossians was written. The author claims to be St. Paul the Apostle, but was probably just a student of his, writing in his name. This was a common practice in the ancient world.
In today’s world, we would call that forgery, but the ancient Greco-Roman world called it respect. It was common for a student to write in their teacher’s name as a way of saying, “Anything I know, I owe to my teachers, so I give all credit to them.” The great Greek philosopher Plato did the very same thing in relation to his teacher, Socrates. Modern historians have a hard time distinguishing between the sayings of Socrates and the sayings of Plato because the student wanted to give all honor and respect to the teacher who taught him everything he knows. It’s a beautiful sentiment, but one that also creates problems for modern historians who value accuracy over honor. Unfortunately, the ancient world does not play by modern rules, so we have to work with what we have. The author of the epistle to the Colossians was probably a student of St. Paul who loved their teacher very much and wanted to preserve his legacy for future generations.
The letter itself was probably written sometime after the year 80 CE, about 20 years after St. Paul is thought to have died. St. Paul himself wrote as if he was expecting Jesus to return and the world to end sometime before next Tuesday, so he didn’t bother too much with setting up sustainable systems of church government that could last for several generations. The author of Colossians, on the other hand, writes as if they expect to be here on this earth for a while, so they’d better figure out a way to live that is consistent with their Christian values, but also realistic for the world they have to live in.
It’s kind of like those times when you’re going out to dinner with your kids, and they want to bring their iPad into the restaurant, but you know that you’re about to be seated, so you tell them to leave it in the car. But then, after you check in with the greeter, you learn that there is a thirty-minute wait to be seated, so you begin to consider letting the kids get their iPads from the car. That’s what the author of Colossians is thinking about.
Thankfully, the author of Colossians is wise and knows how to compromise with reality without sacrificing the core ideals of their faith. They don’t start by complaining about what’s wrong, but by pointing to what’s right.
The author, writing in Paul’s name, says, “In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.”
The author starts with thanksgiving for what is already there. Namely: faith, hope, and love. These three moral values are the antitheses of cynicism, fear, and indifference. Taken together, they form the polar opposite of everything that George Costanza stands for in Seinfeld. The author is not trying to instill these values in the Colossians, but giving thanks that they are already present.
What the author does pray for is an increase in wisdom, patience, and joy for the Colossians, so that they might remain faithful to what they already believe to be true.
Throughout this passage, the author repeatedly returns to the agricultural image of “bearing fruit.” They envision the spiritual life as a tree that is both rooted in love and rising to bear the fruit of love in the world.
Over the next three weeks, we are going to stick with this agricultural metaphor of being “Rooted and Rising in Love,” as we explore the epistle to the Colossians and consider what these ancient writings might mean for us today.
For now, I would like to invite you to consider the negative example of George Costanza from Seinfeld, as a person who is consumed by cynicism, fear, and indifference and acts accordingly in relation to his fellow creatures in the world.
On the other hand, I would also like to invite you to consider the positive example of another fictional character from literature: Samwise Gamgee from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Samwise, or Sam (as he is known to his friends), is the exact opposite of George Costanza in many ways. You need not have read The Lord of the Rings novels or seen the movies to understand what Sam is like. Unlike George Costanza, Sam is not concerned with his own self-preservation, but wants only to support his friend, Frodo the Ring Bearer. When his friend is in danger, Sam rises to protect him. When his friend is hurting, Sam rises to comfort him. When his friend falters in the task that has been given to him, Sam rises to carry him toward its completion.
In all things, Sam is Rooted and Rising in Love. He embodies the wisdom, patience, and joy that the author of Colossians prays for in the readers of this epistle.
In the film version of The Lord of the Rings, Frodo declares, “I can’t do this, Sam,”
And Sam then says to his friend:
“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something… That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”
Kindred in Christ, that’s the message that the author of Colossians means for us to hear today. Over the next few weeks, we will unpack that message in greater detail.
Until then, I want to encourage you to hold on to these words from Samwise Gamgee. Hold onto them when you read the news headlines and are tempted to give in to the demons of cynicism, fear, and despair. Hold onto them in those moments when George Costanza seems wiser than Sam Gamgee. Hold onto them because the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ trumps the sinful despair of this world.
Hold onto what the author of Colossians knew, what Sam Gamgee knew, and what you know to be true. Don’t be deceived by the lies of this world, which is passing away. Hold onto the truth that is eternal, the truth that holds you in the strong arms of love itself. Hold onto the truth of Jesus in the midst of the lies of this world, so that you too might be “rooted and rising in love.” Hold onto it because it is already holding onto you with a love that will not let you go.
Amen.
Is Ketchup a Smoothie? A Sermon on (Not) Understanding the Holy Trinity
Sermon for Trinity Sunday
Service Bulletin:
There are several different kinds of knowledge.
First, there’s book smarts, like knowing that tomatoes are a fruit and not a vegetable.
Then there’s practical wisdom, like knowing that it’s not a good idea to put tomatoes in a fruit salad.
And then there’s philosophy, like wondering whether that means ketchup is technically a smoothie.
Today, we’re going to be talking about that third kind.
Today, we celebrate Trinity Sunday, conventionally known in the Episcopal Church as “associate rector appreciation Sunday” because this is the week that senior rector’s most often take as their vacation. They would much rather leave the explanation of complicated and abstract concepts to those younger clergy who have more up-to-date seminary training. Since we don’t have an associate rector in our parish, and I failed to accurately calculate the week of my vacation, this enviable task has now fallen to me.
So, instead of building up to a conclusion, I’m going to cut straight to the chase. Here’s the main thing I’m going to say about the mystery of the Trinity:
If you think you understand the mystery of the Trinity, you do not understand the mystery of the Trinity; if you do not understand the mystery of the Trinity, you understand the mystery of the Trinity.
Got it? Good. Amen. Let’s all get out of here before the Methodists get the good lunch tables at the diner.
Of course, the problem is that this little riddle leaves us right back where we started, so we end up going around and around until our heads fall off… and that’s the point of the whole thing.
The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the primary Christian concept of God. According to the historical documents of the Anglican theological tradition, “we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor diving the Substance” (The Creed of St. Athanasius, BCP 864). The three Persons of the Godhead are “of one substance, power, and eternity” (Articles of Religion, BCP 867). Don’t worry, I can hear all of you mentally checking out, as we speak.
This is why I started with my main statement: If you think you understand it, you don’t understand it; if you don’t understand it, you understand it. It’s like wondering whether ketchup is a smoothie. The question itself supposed to break your brain, not to break it down, but to break it open and leave you slack-jawed in awestruck wonder at the unknowable mystery of ultimate reality.
The doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly outlined in the Bible. It gradually came together, over the course of several centuries, as the greatest minds of the early Church contemplated their experience of God. Beginning with the monotheism of the Jewish tradition, the earliest followers of Jesus realized that they were, in some way that they couldn’t understand, experiencing the very presence of the God of their ancestors through this individual human being. How was that even possible? They had no idea; they just experienced it to be true. And then, just as mysterious, they continued to experience this Jesus as a living presence in the midst of their community after his death. How was that even possible? They had no idea; they just experienced it to be true. Their knowing had neither the categorical certainty of book smarts nor the effectiveness of practical wisdom. Their knowing was a knowledge of the heart: more like falling in love than solving a math problem. As the philosopher Blaise Pascal famously said, “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.”
After almost three hundred years of contemplation, the bishops of the early Church finally settled on the mystery of the Trinity as their non-answer to a question that, by its very nature, can never be answered. Whenever some innovative theologian claimed to have solved the mystery, the bishops of the Church were quick to stand up and pronounce that answer as a heresy, not because they thought that they had a monopoly on the truth, but because they believed that the main thing is to keep the question open.
If you think you understand the Trinity, you do not understand the Trinity; if you do not understand the Trinity, you understand the Trinity.
I love this central commitment of our faith tradition. We don’t claim to have the answers to ultimate questions. We sit in awestruck wonder before the mystery of reality. This is why I like to say that I couldn’t be a Christian, if I wasn’t also an agnostic.
The ultimate unknowability of the mystery of God affords Christians a certain playfulness, when it comes to expressing that mystery in various ways. The language of our tradition tends to default to language that is very personal, very masculine, and very hierarchical. Most of our prayers use words like “Father” and “Lord” to describe the mystery of God, but the witness of our sacred Scriptures point to a wide array of metaphors for expressing our faith in God.
In addition to the exclusively masculine language of Father, the Bible also describes God as a “Mother” (Isaiah 66:3). In addition to the hierarchical language of Lord, the Bible also describes God as a “Servant” (Luke 22:27). In addition to the numerous personal metaphors for God, the Bible also describes God as a “Mighty Rock” (Psalm 62:7), “Living Water” (John 7:38), “Rushing Wind” (Acts 2:2), and “Consuming Fire” (Hebrews 12:29). As I mentioned in a previous sermon, Jesus even compares himself to a chicken in Matthew 23:37.
Therefore, kindred in Christ, since the Bible itself gives us such a wide array of metaphors for the Divine, and since the bishops of the early Church were so doggedly committed to keeping open the question of God’s unknowable nature, we too ought to remain open to exploring a wide variety of metaphors for God.
God is with us always and in all things. Therefore, let us also look for her, for him, for them, for it, always and in all things. How is God like a cloud or a tree? How is God like a chair or a bookshelf?
Jesus, in his parables, often pointed to agricultural metaphors that were common to the everyday experience of ordinary people, when describing the realm of the divine. For Jesus, the realm of the divine was like a woman baking bread (Matthew 13:33), like crops growing in a field (Mark 4:26-29), like a merchant trading in the marketplace (Matthew 13:45-46), like a small seed growing into a great tree (Matthew 13:31-32). This is not an exhaustive list, by any means.
I want to encourage you today to be playful in the many ways that you imagine God to be present in your life. The language we use about God matters, not because we have to be careful to get it right, but because we cannot get it wrong. Everything is potentially a symbol of God, yet nothing fully encapsulates the mystery. Whenever we try to put God in a box, whether that box is Pope-shaped, Bible-shaped, Church-shaped, man-shaped, or colored white, we commit the sin of idolatry and close ourselves off to the great mystery of the divine.
God is with us always, and in all things, therefore let us keep open the question of what God truly is. Let each of us remain humble in our own conceptions of God and tolerant of the expressions of others. As brothers, sisters, and siblings, let us stand side-by-side, following the example of the Bible and the early Church, and maintain a posture of awestruck wonder before the divine mystery that is beyond our understanding.
The Blessing of Babel
Sermon for the Day of Pentecost
Click here for the biblical readings
There are people in this world who enjoy a good fight, but I am not one of them.
I tend to enjoy conversations more when people with differing opinions can come together on some kind of common ground. As a result, I try to look for that common ground whenever I find myself in a debate with someone. I think that, if we can just identify the core values on which we agree, then we will see that we don’t really disagree, and we can work out the minor details of whatever differences we appear to have.
I imagine that I am a typical midwestern Episcopalian in this respect. We are nice people. We don’t go in for loud fights about rigid dogmas. We like everyone to get along. Our liturgical church tradition allows for a great diversity of theological interpretations. After all, we are descended from the Church of England, the land of good manners, so politeness is in our DNA.
Most of the time, this tendency serves us well. There are times, however, when it doesn’t. When I worked as a chaplain, I once had a patient who was a very bitter and bigoted man. He would rant for hours and use all kinds of ethnic slurs against the groups of people he didn’t like.
In particular, he believed that Hispanic people “would never fully integrate into American society” because they were too different from white people. The funny thing, though, is that this patient didn’t realize that I have one parent from Philadelphia and another from San Juan, Puerto Rico. With my light-colored skin and English last name, he assumed that I was just another white guy like him, but in reality, I am half-Hispanic. Our family integrated so well into “American society” that the dividing line between cultures ran right through the middle of my own body.
I could have said something about this to my patient, but I didn’t. This was partially because healthcare chaplains are trained to avoid controversial topics with patients, but it was also because I simply didn’t feel like dealing with it. By keeping silent, I allowed a part of my identity to be erased in the interest of keeping the peace.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had politely mentioned the truth about my ancestry to my patient. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything at all, but then again, maybe that might have been an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to open up an avenue for growth in this man. I will never know because he passed away before I got to do another visit with him.
There are all kinds of ways that people build walls of protection around themselves. Sometimes, it takes the form of a hostile attitude that pushes other people away. Sometimes, as in my case, it takes the form of polite silence, with a smile and a nod. Sometimes, as in the case of today’s first reading from the book of Genesis, it takes the form of a literal wall around a great city and its mighty tower.
The legend of the Tower of Babel is a cautionary tale about the downside of human progress. The human race, as we read in the text, settled in the land of Shinar and spoke a single language. According to most traditional interpretations, God felt threatened by human progress, so they punished the people by confusing their languages and scattering them across the face of the earth.
I find this interpretation unsettling. Human progress, after all, is largely a good thing. In the last hundred years alone, humanity has cured diseases, ventured into outer space, and reduced extreme poverty to a fraction of where it was in previous generations. On the other hand, we have also continued to pollute the land, water, and air of our planet, constructed nuclear bombs with the power to destroy entire cities, and committed cold-hearted acts of genocide with industrial efficiency, as we did in the Holocaust. Progress, it seems, is a double-edged sword.
In the beginning of the biblical story, when God first created the heavens and the earth, they invited humanity to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). But humanity, it seems, had another idea. They preferred to remain stationary, centralize power, and maintain a homogeneous culture in a walled city. This was the opposite of what God intended for the human race. God had made a huge planet for humanity to explore, with all kinds of diverse life-forms and creatures. God meant for the human race to be explorers, but we settled for being settlers in the place where we were.
This is the real reason why God confused the languages of the people of Shinar at the Tower of Babel: not to punish us, but to push us out of the nest and into the wide world. Diversity of language and culture is not a curse, but a blessing. It calls us out of our comfort zones to become the kind of people we were always meant to be.
Fast-forwarding to this morning’s New Testament lesson, from the Acts of the Apostles, we read about the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus’ disciples and allowed their message to be heard and understood by people of many languages. Some interpretations of this passage have understood this miracle as a reversal of what happened at the Tower of Babel. The confusion of languages was resolved by the movement of the Holy Spirit.
Once again, though, I find this interpretation unsettling. It is based on the former assumption that what happened at Babel was an act of punishment. But, if I am correct in thinking of the diversification of languages as a blessing, then what happened at Pentecost is a fulfillment of that original blessing. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the people were able to discern a single message that was being communicated through multiple languages. Underneath the diversity of cultural expressions was a common thread of understanding: One Spirit speaking one message in many different ways. This interpretation of the Tower of Babel and the Day of Pentecost has profound implications for how we practice our faith as Christians today.
We live today in a world that is both more connected and more isolated than ever. Through the miracle of telecommunications, we have the ability to talk to people on the other side of the world in real time. Through the magic of the internet, we have access to a vast supply of information that previous generations couldn’t even dream of. However, our human tendency to gather in homogeneous groups of people who think alike, look alike, pray alike, vote alike, and love alike has led us to seek shelter from the vastness of the universe in echo chambers of people who will only confirm what we think we already know.
Kindred in Christ, I think it is past time for us to reclaim the double blessing of Babel and Pentecost in our own day. The price of remaining isolated in sheltered towers of like-minded individuals is nothing less than the survival of our species itself. As the great American intellectual Benjamin Franklin once said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we will all hang separately.”
God is once again calling us to discern the voice of the one Spirit speaking in diverse tongues. What this requires of us is that we listen intently to the voices of our neighbors who speak different languages, practice different religions, vote for different candidates, and love different partners than we do. It requires also that we speak courageously, tolerantly, and lovingly from our own perspectives on these issues.
Let us not hide in fear behind walls of hostility or politeness, when it comes to the questions that matter most, but “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) so that we might discern the voice of the one Spirit who speaks through many languages. Let us place our faith in God, who inspired St. Paul to write:
“There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
(1 Corinthians 12:4-7)
Beloved kindred, let us not give way to the cynicism of this age that despairs of finding common ground and sets humanity on a common course toward oblivion. Let us instead place our faith in Christ, who came that we “may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Let us take the risk of speaking our truth and listening with love, that we too might hear the voice of the one Spirit who speaks in many ways.
Amen.
Do you get it?
Sermon for the sixth Sunday of Easter
Click here for the biblical readings
It’s always annoying when someone walks into a movie late and asks, “What’d I miss?”
My wife and I share equal blame for this particular crime against convenience. Not wanting to be a burden, one of us will say, on our way to the kitchen, “You don’t have to pause it; this will just take a second!”
Inevitably, the all-important snack retrieval process will take longer than expected and the kitchen-goer will miss some pivotal moment in the plot, leaving the other person with the unenviable task of rewinding the video or explaining what just happened. It would have been easier to just pause it, but we will probably never learn.
Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but that’s exactly what has happened to us in today’s gospel. The editors of the Revised Common Lectionary (i.e. the three-year cycle of biblical readings that our church follows in its Sunday worship) decided to cut out the beginning of the scene that we read this morning. In this scene, Jesus is answering a question posed by one of his disciples, but we never get to hear what the question is!
So, for the sake of clarity, I would like to pause the movie and explain what happened while we were out of the room. (If anyone needs to go to the kitchen for a snack, now would be a good time.)
So, the verses we read this morning come from a section of John’s gospel called “The Farewell Discourse.” It takes place on the night before Jesus dies, just after he washes the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper.
In the Farewell Discourse, Jesus answers three questions from three of his disciples: Thomas, Philip, and Judas. The passage we heard today is from Jesus’ response to the third disciple, Judas. The author of John’s gospel goes out of the way to let us know that this Judas is not the infamous Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus, but another disciple of the same name.
Jesus had just finished explaining, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me” (John 14:19). Judas asked in reply, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world” (John 14:22)?
Today’s gospel picks up with Jesus’ response to this question:
“Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me” (John 14:23-24).
The context of Judas’ question is important for understanding Jesus’ response.
For centuries, many have wondered: Why do some people seem to “get it” when it comes to matters of faith, and others don’t?
Many potential answers to this question have been suggested. Some say that those who “get it” are those who are able to suspend their faculties of critical thinking and “just believe” without question. I can understand the appeal of this approach for those who aren’t constitutionally inclined toward philosophical discourse, but for those who are, this is a violation of their intellectual integrity. Belief without evidence, for such people, would be like asking any of us to betray our core moral convictions. If faith requires suspension of our moral reasoning, then faith is evil. I can understand why intelligent people of good conscience would reject faith on these grounds.
Others have suggested that the inability of some people to believe in Christ is due to the fact that God chooses some people to be saved and others to be damned. The so-called “elect” are predestined for salvation while the “reprobate” are doomed, no matter what they do, say, or believe. This was the view taken by John Calvin, who inspired the Reformed and Presbyterian traditions of Protestant Christianity. I don’t mean to be too harsh against our brother Calvin (or the Reformed/Presbyterian churches), because they too are our kindred in Christ, but I must protest (pun intended) that such a reliance on the sovereignty of God does violence to the loving character of God, who “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).
The final answer to the objection that some seem to “get it,” when it comes to faith in Christ, while others don’t, comes from the atheists, who say that it is the atheists who fully realize the fact that there is no God, therefore those who believe in God are victims of a mass deception, designed to imprison credulous believers in a jail of their own imagination.
I deeply respect the commitment of said nonbelievers to their intellectual integrity, but I also question whether they have placed too much faith in their lack of faith. True skepticism must become skeptical of itself, if it is to remain true to its core belief in the power of open inquiry. The “maybe not” of the skeptic must also be the “maybe so” of the agnostic, if the principle of free thought is to be maintained.
It should come as no surprise that I reject all three of these explanations, though I can see the individual merits of each. The answer that Jesus gives, in response to Judas’ question in John 14, does little to address the doubts and conclusions of any of these groups.
The answer that Jesus gives is rooted, not in philosophical arguments, but in the principle of love. Jesus says, “Those who love me will keep my word.” Jesus’ word is his command. What is his command? He answers in chapter 15, verse 12: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Love for one another is his commandment.
What is the result of his commandment? He says so in today’s gospel: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:23).
To love our neighbor is to love Christ, and to love Christ is to love God, therefore the only way to love God is by loving one another. The New Testament makes this even more plain later on, when it says, in 1 John 4:20, “those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”
Therefore, kindred in Christ, the answer to Judas’ question is not knowledge but love. We may never know, with any certainty, whether the basic tenets of the Christian faith are literally true, but we can prove the efficacy of our faith in the way that we treat each other, our neighbors, and even our enemies. I can’t prove to you the fact that Jesus is the Son of God, but I can hopefully demonstrate, in the way that I live my life, the truth that the meaning of life can be found in loving one another the way that Jesus loves us, without condition or proviso.
I dare to proclaim to you this morning that the meaning of life is love itself, and I have come to experience the ultimate expression of love through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. I pray that my actions toward you will be a testimony to this love, and I pray furthermore, that your actions in this life will be a similar testimony to the living love of the risen Christ, who continues to love this world through you.
There is no proof I can offer of the truth of Christ, except the evidence of a life lived in love. I pray that you and I will be faithful in our living witness to the love of Christ. If I am right, then a life lived in love, in the name of Christ, will be all the proof we need.
Amen.
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 