If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
God is good! All the time! All the time? God is good!
It is a joy to welcome you all here this morning as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. You know, I always remark on how different this, our greatest Christian holiday, is from Christmas, which is the world’s greatest Christian holiday. The lead up to Christmas is pure craziness – and we all know it and, for the most part, participate in it. My evidence for that? We hold a service each year the week before Christmas which we call “A Service of Hope and Remembrance” for people who want to take a break from the shopping and the cards and the lights and the preparations and the whatever. And we have 15 or 20 people who show up, including the four of five of us who have to be here. And that’s how we lead up to the greatest secular Christian holiday. Liturgical Advent is pretty much a non-starter for the 21st century world.
By contrast, the lead up to Easter, our greatest Christian holiday, is quiet, somber, reflective leading up to a week that is marked by false accusations, arrest of an innocent man, and his subsequent trial in the court of popular opinion, brutal torture and death. No kings, no heavenly hosts, no presents. There is a Good Friday, not a Black Friday – have you ever thought of the irony of that? A Friday that observed a crucifixion of an innocent man is the lead in to Easter and the Friday that kicks off our
annual paroxysm of overspending and hyperactivity is the lead in to Christmas.
The comparison draws us to St. Paul’s words in his first letter to the church in Corinth. Now when we hear this passage, our attention tends to be drawn into the main body of the passage, the part about “since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also to come through a human being.” Professional theologians – because you know, we are all theologians, most of us just don’t get paid for it – professional theologians and leaders of the church have spent the better part of 2000 years arguing over the meaning of Christ’s death. This passage has been one of the keys to those who advocate for a theory known as “substitutionary atonement” – don’t worry, there won’t be a test on this before you’re allowed to receive communion. The Substitutionary Atonement theory holds that since Adam and Eve committed the first sin, it would take the sacrifice of a human who was acceptable to God in order to reconcile the human race back to God. And since a mere human could never please God, it had to be a God-human, like Jesus, to be sacrificed. Now I’ve never been a big fan of the substitutionary atonement theory. And it seems to me that there is over 1000 or so years of Jewish history that is a part of our own Christian tradition that would indicate God had a pretty good stake in the world in supporting his chosen people before the arrival of Jesus. But that’s what this passage from 1st Corinthians is usually understood to stand for.
But I want to take us back to the very opening line of the passage: If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. The Arabic translation of the opening phrase renders it, "if we from Christ, and by him, expect happiness in this world only." If we hope in Christ only for the things of this life; if our hope in Him is bounded by this earthly life, and confined to the things of it, and does not reach to the things of another life, the things of eternity, the invisible glories of another world, to be enjoyed in soul and body, then we, who should know better, are to be pitied.
And this is why the secularization of Christmas is so devastating: If the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus is so trivialized, we lose the significance of God so identifying with God’s creation that God takes on a human nature. Beliefs which we have held central throughout the ages—such as the Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus, and such as the truth of the Resurrection – have become a part of our Western culture, and in the process, I dare say we can begin to take them for granted. We become comfortable thinking of Jesus as brother, teacher, rabbi, prophet – all of which are roles he indeed models for us. And that is comfortable for us – that is something that we can relate to and still stay within our own human comfort zones. The danger here, however, is that it leads us down the path of secularization of Christianity in general that has lured many of us Christians into relying on what can easily become a secular belief system.
This was the subject of an editorial in the British magazine, The Spectator a few years back. Pointing out that “it is Easter, not Christmas, that makes Christianity such a radical religion. In a world where we are invited to worship strength and power, the symbol of churchgoers is a man defeated, despised and rejected. The story of the passion and the Resurrection is one of pain as well as joy, the worst suffering before the greatest jubilation. But when religion and the secular culture become too intertwined – as they have become ever since Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century – Christianity ceases to become the counter-cultural movement that Jesus founded, and it becomes one more appendage of the dominant culture.
As the Spectator editorial observed, if you’re not a believer, there’s no story which has more to say about the hope and despair of being human. If you are a believer, it’s the most important event in history. Last night at our Easter Vigil, Pastor George Chien told a modern version of Ezekiel’s story of the dry bones – you know, where the prophet observes a valley of dry bones that, through invocation of the Holy Spirit, miraculously move from mere bones to being connected by ligaments and muscle and gradually are enfleshed and ultimately, by a prophetic infusion of God’s spirit, the formerly dry bones take on new life as part of God’s creation. The point of Pastor George’s modernized story is that the institutional church, by its centuries long courtship with social institutions, has lost the zeal and the energy – can I say the life? – of the movement that the risen Christ began 2000 years ago.
And what Paul is saying in verse 19 is that if we’re not ready to believe and to proclaim that Jesus has risen from the dead, then all we get out of our faith is a little inspiration for the few short years of our lives, and we’re a pretty sorry lot. But if Christ is raised, and we believe that, then he is only the first in a long legacy of folk who are leaving the cemeteries, for whom even before their remains arrive there, their souls are in the nearer presence of our risen Lord. Are we ready to embrace the challenge presented by following in the footsteps of a Lord who rose from the dead? Or are we more comfortable adoring a Lord who did all the heavy lifting and expects nothing of us. Or are we more comfortable with the friendship of a quaint rabbi who left us some examples to live by but is not present in the world today.
On Good Friday, as part of the annual Asylum Hill Christian Community procession among seven of the Asylum Hill Pastor Kari Nicewander of Immanuel Congregational had been assigned to preach on the crucifixion and death from the Gospel according to John. To illustrate the finality of the death of Jesus’ human body, she took a glass and smashed it on the stone floor next to the pulpit.
“Shattered glass,” she said. That’s what happened to Jesus body – something that had been whole was totally shattered after being beaten, flogged, tortured, crucified, stuck with a spear – Jesus body was dead. That’s what the onlookers saw – that’s what Joseph and Nicodemus buried. That’s what the women expected to find the next morning when they arrived with their spices.
But as God always does, God made the unexpected happen. Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry reminds us in his Easter message; this was not a fairy tale that happened on that first Easter morning. This was God at work. “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” the angels ask the women. “Didn’t you believe it when Jesus said ‘that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again?’ You didn’t hear that? Oh, but wait a minute, you weren’t expecting a miracle, were you? That was just the rabbi saying that. Well guess what, this was a miracle that just happened here.”
And even when they go back to the disciples – the ALL MALE DISCIPLES guys, the ladies are quick to remind us – the disciples didn’t believe them. Luke tells us, “But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” And only Peter goes down to check it out for himself.
Shattered glass. That’s what we expect when we drop a glass onto a stone floor. A dead body, that’s what we expect after a crucifixion. But God is always bigger than what appears on the surface of things. St. Paul reminds us that “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” And that is what we celebrate at Easter – the ultimate triumph of hope over death.
What do you see on this Easter morning – a broken glass or an empty tomb? The shattered life of a faithful rabbi, or a risen Savior? Is the Easter story an idle tale, or is it a miracle that calls us to unimaginable new life? The risen Christ challenges us – as did Jesus – to lift our gaze higher than what we can see. The risen Christ challenges us to think and feel and trust beyond the confines of our human bodies, beyond the limited imaginations of our human minds, to do more than believe in the possibility of miracles, yes, can I say, even to expect them. Amen.
Sermon for the Great Vigil of Easter Marie Alford-Harkey, M.Div. Readings can be found here.
This is the night! Rejoice now! This is the night that we tell the stories…
God’s spirt sweeping over the formless void, creating light, sky, land, sea, and every living thing – declaring it good.
Rejoice now! This is the night!
This is the night when we recall that God has entrusted us humans with God’s beautiful creation. And so we remember that it is we who are charged with caring for and continuing God’s creative acts.
This is the night we tell the story…
God’s breathed life into earth-beings, created in the image of God, from God’s own imagination and will and declared them very good.
Rejoice now! This is the night!
This is the night when we celebrate that each of us is created in the beautiful, infinitely diverse and unknowable image of God: old and young, black and white, women, men, transgender people. Refugees, people with disabilities. Politicians, pundits, terrorists, martyrs – all of us created in the image of God.
This is the night we tell the story…
God delivering God’s people from slavery, even when they aren’t sure that they want to be delivered – were there no graves in Egypt?
This is the night…
When we declare that yes, we are ready to be freed from what enslaves us, even if it would be easier to go back to our oppressor. This is the night when we cry “Freedom,” and pledge to do the hard work of enacting liberation for ourselves and for everyone. This is the night when we remember that none of us is free until all of us are free.
Rejoice now! This is the night we tell the story.
Miriam dancing and playing her tambourine – sing to God, who made the way clear for God’s people to move to freedom.
This is the night…
When we trust in God’s ability to make a way for liberation – not just for some of us, but for all of us.
Rejoice now! This is the night we tell the story.
God gathering God’s people from the four corners of the world – and giving them a land of their own.
This is the night.
This is the night when we remember millions of refugees around the world, when we pray for all who hope against hope that they can return … home. When we acknowledge in the words of the prophet Maya Angelou, that the ache for home lives in all of us.
Rejoice now! This is the night we tell the story.
God sprinkles God’s people with clean water, removes the heart of stone from their bodies, gives them a new heart of flesh – God’s own spirit inside God’s people.
This is the night…
When we acknowledge that we are in need of transformation, of cleansing, when we acknowledge that our hearts can turn to stone, that we must be challenged in our certainties. And this is the night when we admit that, in the words of the prophet Nadia Bolz Weber, it is painful when God removes our heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh, beating with God’s own breath. It is painful, yet necessary transformation that only God can enact in us.
Rejoice now! This is the night we tell the story.
God promises – you shall be my people and I will be your God.
This is the night…
When we admit that being God’s people is not always the easiest thing. Being God’s people calls us to places we would not have chosen and to relationships that we would as soon have avoided.
Rejoice now! This is the night we tell the story.
God transforms the human remains of war. Bones long dead, come together with sinews, flesh, and skin. And God’s breath comes from the four winds into them and they live – God brings them up from their graves.
This is the night…
When we admit that we feel completely annihilated, defeated, dried up and dead. And this is the night when we choose to hear the prophecy and allow God’s breath to bring us to life – together – a community of people enlivened with the very breath of God. This is the night when we imagine what such a community might do.
Rejoice now! This is the night…
When through the Paschal mystery one of us, and all of us, are buried with Christ by baptism into death and raised with Christ to newness of life.
Rejoice now! This is the night…
When we remember our own baptism, when we celebrate our promises to renounce evil and put our trust in Jesus’ grace. This is the night when we make and renew our covenant to break bread together, resist evil, proclaim the Good News with our lives, seek and serve Christ in all persons, and strive for justice and peace among all people.
Rejoice now! This is the night…
When through the waters of baptism, we claim our new life in Christ.
Rejoice now! This is the night…
When through the waters of baptism, we are restored to grace and holiness of life
And … this is the night…
When we arrive, frightened, grieving, broken at the tomb, only to be asked “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
This is the night…
When we answer with truth – we do not know how one who was dead can now be alive. Even though we have been told, forewarned, and shown – we cannot understand. This is the night when we are confronted with the most beautiful mystery of our faith.
This is the night
when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell.
This is the night
when we share in Christ’s victory over death.
This is the night, beloved people of God, when we proclaim resurrection.
It is a natural human tendency to want explanations for things that offend our sense of justice and fairness. Now my family thinks I carry my desire for explanations to a ridiculous and even embarrassing extent. But surely if anything seems to demand an explanation it would be the events we remember this Good Friday evening, events which represent human evil.
Given the love and mercy of an all-powerful God, the crucifixion of God’s beloved son Jesus seems to demand an explanation because it challenges what we believe about God’s power and concern for all things human and most particularly for God’s own son. The bloody and painful journey from the arrest of this non-violent compassionate religious teacher and healer to his excruciating death on a cross brings us into the heart of evil: of events that challenge our fundamental beliefs about what is fair and good in God’s dealings with the world, a world that God created in love and whose ultimate fulfillment God intends. A morally innocent man who taught love, compassion, gentleness and self-sacrifice is brutally beaten before he is nailed to a cross. In the face of this horrendous act, we want to know: why did God, who is all-powerful and all-loving, let, or even worse, cause this to happen? We want, we demand, an explanation. And Christian theologians have not been reluctant to provide one, or, in fact, many. One explanation, which is becoming for many Christians no longer plausible, is that God, like a medieval monarch, was dishonored or shamed when God’s human creation turned against him at the moment of the original sin and spread that sin to every human being since then. God, in this view, demands that someone restore the divine honor and that someone should be a morally innocent person whose death would free God to forgive all other persons. This explanation, as I noted last year on Good Friday (I don’t know why I keep being given this preaching slot: that, too, demands an explanation), turns God into a petty prince who can’t get no satisfaction unless someone dies to restore his honor. This is a view of God as a vengeful tyrant who demands innocent blood and sacrifice before he will deign to love again what God originally created in love. This is the kind of God who has been used by human fathers and mothers to justify their abuse of their children until they’ve paid the price for their disobedience to their parents. Whatever theological merit this view of God once had it has lost its power for many Christians today who find it mired in long-lost medieval assumptions about honor and revenge and the demand for innocent blood.
Another explanation that has been offered to the problem of evil appeals to the mysterious will of God. We are told that human suffering and evil simply must be part of a divine plan even though we can’t see what it is. Our finite and sinful natures are such that we can’t explain or justify the horrendous evils of the world but, we are told, there is in God’s mind a justification for all this evil. But this explanation hardly satisfies us either and leads many into atheism. It requires us to say to the parents of a child suffering from a painful terminal illness, it’s part of God’s plan that your child suffer; it’s God’s will that you and your child live in agony, even if we can’t possibly discern why God would will such a thing. This explanation by appeal to the mystery of God’s will often winds up justifying every human and natural atrocity by the assurance that God wills it for reasons we can never fathom. But such an assurance does little to persuade us that this God is a God of love and compassion.
What explanations are left, then, if we find these two unacceptable? I’m beginning to think, even as a person whose professional career has been dedicated to seeking explanations for virtually everything (as I admitted earlier to the despair of my family), that Good Friday invites us to set aside the search for explanations and instead to step personally into the narrative of Jesus’ death and to join him as he moves through his last hours. The enormity of evil is perhaps not best approached by reassuring explanations or justifications or by theological mysteries but rather by undergoing existentially events that cannot be explained or justified. Explanations have a tendency to domesticate evil, to make it more acceptable because it is willed by God. Explanations hide the enormity of evil from us by covering it with the false reassurance that’s all part of God’s plan for us.
But Jesus’ undeserved suffering is not a pre-scripted play or a charade, though some early Christians believed his divine nature left his body before the first whip was laid to his back or the first nail driven into his hands and feet. It is not a drama in which the plot has already been resolved by the author. Jesus is not just going through his part already knowing how it will all turn out. Jesus really suffers and bleeds and cries out to God asking why he has been abandoned or forsaken. Those are real cries from the heart, not words from a script which has already been written.
Today in a world which seems overrun with moral atrocities, with the grossest of all violations of human dignity, with everyday pain and brutality and natural disasters, the attempt to offer reassuring explanations for all this evil seems callous and inappropriate to the existential suffering people are actually going through. But a suffering person does not first want a theoretical explanation for his plight: he wants a cup of water, or a blanket, or a shelter, or food or medical care or whatever will rescue him from his horror.
In our liturgy and readings for this night, we are being asked to join Jesus as he is dragged from one event to another on his way to the cross without the comfort of an explanation. Joining Jesus means stepping into the details of this horrendous night, into the specific moments of his humiliation and agony and sense of desertion and abandonment by God. Confronting or experiencing each of those moments in their stark and merciless immediacy, unprotected by the warmth of a reassuring explanation, is perhaps a better way of identifying with the evil Jesus encountered and through him the evil that faces so many of us today. The evil of injustice, oppression, neglect, indifference, callousness, and inhumanity. The evil of the death of innocent children, the slaughter of civilians by fanatical terrorists wrapped in the mantle of religious zealotry and ideology. The evils of this world are too numerous to count. So instead of counting them or theorizing about them or explaining them, we can I think do no better than putting ourselves, at least temporarily and through our imaginations, into the shoes or often bare feet of those who are unjustly undergoing evil.
When we do that we join Jesus on his way to Golgotha. And what do we take with us on that journey? What Jesus took with him: a simple assurance without a protective explanation that no matter what was happening to him, he would never be ultimately abandoned by God. In the moment of his deepest despair, as found in the words of the Psalm which he recited on the cross, after asking why God seemed to have abandoned him, he returns to his fundamental conviction that God did not and will not despise the affliction of the afflicted; Jesus says that God even in the midst of horrendous evil “did not hide his face from me, but heard me when I cried to him. . and I will proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.” God did not explain what was going on or why but instead heard Jesus and delivered him from its most fearsome aspect: a sense of being abandoned by the one who loved him. This deliverance did not stop the nails from being driven into his flesh but it did ensure that his death on the cross did not sever his basic and enduring link to God.
God has and will deliver us from the power of evil to take away our loving relationship with God and will even deliver us from explanations of evil that do more harm than good to our understanding of God’s love and mercy. That love will get us through the horrors of evil and it is upon that love, not upon explanatory justifications, that we should rely. For in the end only an unexplained and unearned love which is with us at every moment of our journey through the valley of the shadow of death can ultimately deliver us from evil and its most insidious threat, the threat of being left alone by God in the midst of evil itself. Our ultimate reassurance is that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God. And that reassurance is worth far more than an explanation that winds up explaining away the evil that confronts us.
In the name of a loving God who sent his only Son Jesus to teach and show us the way of life.
Amen
Tonight I would like to speak to scripture and the many ways we may react or respond to what God is calling us to hear. I am amazed by the number of times I have heard tonight’s Gospel reading from John and the many ways I have responded to a different verse. Sometimes scripture just reaches out to you and you know what God is calling you to hear. Sometimes one must reflect from deep within on what scripture is calling you to hear, even if you don’t want to hear. Other times scripture, like God, just meets you where you are.
However scripture touches us, we need to be prepared to receive the word and what it means.
Perhaps, because this reading speaks to servant-hood and love with Jesus showing us the way, I have been called to reflect ways by which I can love my neighbor.
The more I contemplated this Gospel reading the more one portion of a verse spoke to me.
John 13:3-4
And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe.
Such simple words:
Jesus took off his outer robe.
These simple words spoke to me. Is this an important verse or part of a verse in this Gospel narrative maybe, maybe not. For me, this week, the answer is yes. Here is why.
Jesus removing his outer robe is an example of Jesus showing himself in humility as he teaches the disciples how to love and serve on this last evening. Jesus removing his outer robe shows us that we need to free ourselves to be open to what we experience, what we hear and see.
What types of outer robes do we wear?
Do we wear robes of pride or importance that prevent us from seeing the struggle of others?
Do we wear robes that protect us from being hurt or from fully experiencing the other?
Do these robes we wear act as a shield or armor that protect us from fully experiencing which in turn denies the opportunity to be empathetic, understanding, or caring?
How do we meet people where they are if we choose not to take off our outer robe?
More specifically how do we open ourselves to hear, to understand, to experience and to respond if we are hiding behind what we want others to see and how we want to see others.
Most importantly, how can we appreciate the gifts we have been given through interactions with others if we cannot bare our soles to receive them?
How do we open ourselves to the pain, the trouble and the joy if we hide under our “robes”?
Yesterday I had the privilege to see many people from different ways of life participate in serving “the other” at a foot clinic which was accomplished through collaboration with religious and secular communities. (And here it sounds like the Holy Week version of the song The Twelve Days of Christmas) The participants in this clinic were first and foremost the clients of Church Street Eats, Trinity Church Hartford, Hartford Hospital, Christ Church Cathedral, University of Hartford Community Program, First Congregational Church Glastonbury, a Medical Supply Distributer, concerned citizens and last but not least, April’s Minister of Service Sandy.
This event was a blessing for me, and I expect all involved in the clinic. Let’s face it and name it, we all have perceptions. Many of these perceptions act as protection from fear of the unknown or perhaps they allow our self-worth to remain intact.
Please bare with me here.
The clients may have had a negative perception of self worth requiring them to literally bare themselves, accepting aide from others in the community. Imagine what it would take to sit in a chair in front of strangers and admit that you have medical, addiction, or financial issues.
I am here to tell you the purpose of this clinic was not lost on the client or the provider. The clinic was about much more than foot care, the clients were able to remove their outer robes and in some cases tell their powerful stories.
The clients removed their shoes from sweaty feet, which walk many miles each day because they can’t pay for bus or car transportation. They were cared for by strangers who were introduced to them, most often with a handshake. They were called by name. Every person was treated with respect and dignity. Clients were grateful to talk with someone who listened and understood some of the pain they were facing. A few talked about the importance of this clinic occurring during Holy Week and the promise of Resurrection that is for all to partake.
The workers also removed their outer robes and heard sacred stories.
The response of the in-take workers, care givers and escorts was touching. I know for me, and perhaps others, there was a moment of silent prayer to God for this stranger sitting across from us. The workers gave personal time and talent; they listened with concern and empathy and treated their charge with gentle loving care and in some cases referred clients for more extensive care. Both clients and caretakers had the opportunity to meet one another just where they were.
Yes God’s hand was at work and clearly visible yesterday.
But yesterday isn’t all there is. This love does not occur only during Holy week.
On a daily basis, all of us have the opportunity to take off our robes and respond to our brothers and sisters in need. Our response doesn’t always have to be monetary, or medical or a purchase of needed supplies such as clothing or food. Our response can be to listen, to understand, to empathize and to provide hope through a touch, a smile, or a nod of the head.
We are blessed at Trinity to have the opportunity to partake in God’s Mission through many opportunities: Church by the Pond, Loaves & Fishes, Covenant to Care, our Lenten Sneaker collection, a potential to partner with IRIS for refugee resettlement, Foodshare, the Choir School of Hartford and Trinity Academy. But that is not all there is. Tonight I ask you to reflect on how acts of kindness can become a way of life for you.
As part of my Lenten discipline I subscribed to daily emails sent by the Society of St John called GrowRule: My Rule of Life Meditations . One of the posts this past week was a reflection by Brother Luke Ditewig. Here is what he had to say:
We need companions on the journey. We need people who we feel safe with, (people) who we trust. We need to be with each other and to experience the wonders of life, to share them as well as to share the heartache and the sorrow and the challenge. As one mentor told me, God has given us our companions. We may ask for others but most often, our companions are already given; we have neighbors. But it is a choice to interact, it is a choice to trust, it is a choice to invest to be with them, and to also let them change us, to receive the gifts that they have to offer. That’s part of this practice of life. That’s part of becoming more like God choosing to be in relationship and to be interactive.
I leave you with this thought: Who are the unexpected or who might the unexpected companions God has placed in your life, can you remove your outer robe, and are you ready to receive the gifts they have to offer?
When last I preached from this pulpit we were in the middle of the final season of the PBS Masterpiece Theatre Series Downton Abbey. For those of you who were not here that Sunday or who have never seen it, the series depicts the lives of the aristocratic Crawley Family, headed by Robert Crawley, also known as the Earl of Grantham. They all live in a grand Yorkshire country estate known as Downton Abbey, along with their crew of servants. It is set in early 20th Century England and over its six seasons the viewer has lived with the family and their servants through personal tragedies and triumphs, trials and intrigues even as we witness the changing social landscape in aristocratic England and the rest of the world. The final episode of the series was last Sunday, and it was a fitting finale to a wonderful series. SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT YET: Everything was tied up ever so nicely at the end – those who were in danger of getting fired have retained their jobs, those who had been jilted get happily married, those who were sick or dying are restored to health and vigor, those who suffered from hardness of heart discover the ability to express emotion and empathy. And everyone seems ready to enter the remainder of the 20th century still clinging to some vestiges of Edwardian England even as they begin to spread their wings with some of the new-found freedom of the late 1920s. Ahh, if life were only so simple and predictable.
Political, social, and spiritual change is at the heart of each of one today’s passages from Scripture. Second Isaiah assures the people of Jerusalem and those exiled in Babylon that the rise of King Cyrus of Persia portends the end of their period of exile and the promise of a return home. In our Gospel passage from John’s Gospel, Jesus’ interpretation of Mary’s act of anointing him with expensive oil is forward-looking, anticipating his impending trial, passion and death and the life-changing consequence that will occasion. And in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he writes of how the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus has transformed his life. And it is this passage that I would like to explore a bit with you this morning.
When my daughter Katie was applying to graduate schools, I remember that she had four schools in which she was particularly interested: Brown, New York University, Johns Hopkins and Carnegie-Mellon. Being a city girl, she really had her heart set on NYU. As she was trying to decide which one to attend, she developed a sheet for each one: On the left was a list of the “pros” for that institution and on the right were the “cons.” I remember that the NYU, Johns Hopkins and Carnegie-Mellon sheets all had a really long list of “pros” on the left side and few “cons” on the right, but one of the cons was consistent: $75,000 to $85,000 in debt following graduation. Brown, on the other hand, had a long list of “cons” – who besides Dante Tavolaro wants to be in Providence? – and a relatively short list of positive qualities. But one of the “pros” was: $24,000 in debt, because they gave her a very generous financial aid package. Guess where she went? She went to Brown.
Saint Paul in today’s passage from the letter to the Philippians creates a similar ledger sheet as he takes stock of his life: Both a devout Jew and a Roman citizen, he seemingly had it all –
- Circumcised on the 8th day
- A member of the People of Israel and the Tribe of Benjamin
- A Hebrew born of Hebrews
- As to the law, a Pharisee
- As to zeal, a persecutor of the early church
- As to righteousness under the Law, blameless.
As a 1st century Jew, what’s not to like? By the very circumstances of his birth, not unlike our Downton Abbey friends, Paul was born into privilege and had every reason to rely on things of “the flesh” and those social and religious “percs” he received by reason of who his parents were. AND YET, as Paul looks back on his life, he now places these seemingly positive qualities on the negative side of the ledger sheet. Much like Katie’s lonely positive quality at Brown, Paul has but one item on his “pro” side, and that single qualityhe identifies in verse 8 outweighs all of the others: “The surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.” The life and teachings of Jesus alone reversed all of the conventional wisdom about what is valuable and worthy.
To better understand this passage, we need to look at the context in the beginning of the chapter at verse 2, where Paul writes, Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God, and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh – even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.” Paul is not just writing about Jewish persecutors of the Christian faith – he is also writing about those who are teaching a gospel that is not grounded in the fullness of the life, the teachings, the death and resurrection of Jesus. So Paul is not simply writing about Christians versus Jews; this is Paul exhorting his own followers in the start-up church not to be afraid to trust their whole lives to Jesus. And he does it by taking stock of his own personal experience in faith.
St. Paul is telling us that we find security for our past, present and future by paying attention to, and following, the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, and not by our own personal attributes or that which we can accomplish on our own. And as I have noted probably a hundred or more times, that is not something we Americans, and especially we New Englanders, are particularly good at. We don’t even have a taste for it. Throughout this Lent, starting with the temptations of Jesus following his baptism, we have seen the pattern of Jesus life: how he gave up heaven to come to earth; how he gave up certainty and safety in favor of a future hope.
And that is what St. Paul is talking about here. As did Jesus, St. Paul takes that ledger sheet and reverses it, giving up that which is certain and comfortable and embracing that which is unknown, going into places he has never been before, embracing an uncertain future because of “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.”
Paul knew that if we stay in places we know well, where we are comfortable, then we have no need to trust in Jesus, or in anyone but ourselves for that matter. And lets face it, we like being comfortable. It is against our nature – and against the nature of the world – to take risks. We naturally fear and resist change. That was one of the recurring themes of the Downton Abbey series – how one engages a rapidly changing world with beliefs and practices that have been molded by a prior age. As Maggie Smith, in the role of the Dowager Countess of Grantham in the Downton Abbey series observed a few weeks ago, “An aristocrat embracing change is like a turkey looking forward to Christmas.” And yet change is what Paul is calling us to.
It is said that there can be no Easter Sunday without passing through Good Friday. As we reach this 5th Sunday in Lent, Paul is reminding us today that we cannot participate in the resurrection unless we have journeyed with Jesus into the places of our hearts and our lives where there is no light or life, but only uncertainty.
Next Sunday is Palm Sunday; we have two more weeks to reflect on our own journey of faith before it will be time to celebrate the Resurrection at our Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday. In the spirit of Paul’s example today, I challenge each of us to do what Paul did and look at our personal ledger sheet. I’m talking about you as a member of the Body of Christ. I mean examining the ways in which perhaps you have become a little too comfortable, a little complacent in your faith. How do we perhaps take the life and teachings of Jesus for granted? In what aspects of our lives do we trust only in ourselves or our position, or our abilities? How do we use those to advance the Jesus Movement, which has morphed into an institution called, “The Church?” Let’s each ask ourselves, “How often do I choose the “safe” path? Is that the path that Paul or Jesus might have followed in the same circumstances?
And then on the other side of the ledger, let’s write down those times when we have taken a personal risk, ventured into uncharted territory, or done some good work in the name of Jesus that we have never done before. Try on a ministry you might not have thought about before. My guess is that – for all of us – this side of the ledger will be a lot shorter than the first one. St. Paul this morning invites us to make it our task for the rest of Lent to ponder ways in which we can grow the “Jesus” side of the ledger. Amen.
The scripture lessons this morning reflect a complicated and conflicted understanding of the value of land or territory in the Biblical story of God’s relationship to the people of the earth. Out of a complex ritual having to do with animals and birds, God makes a covenant with Abram that will give him land and fill the world with his descendants greater in number than the stars in the sky. And in the Gospel Jesus tells his followers that he must go on up to the physical space of Jerusalem to finish his mission by being put to death there.
In both stories the importance of land seems central. God promises Abram and his descendants land if they will remain faithful to God. Jesus considers it his duty to God’s call to wind up specifically in Jerusalem, the city that kills prophets and stones those who are sent to it. In the first instance land is a gift: a place for Abram’s descendants to settle and live out their covenant with God. But in the second instance the land, the territory of Jerusalem, is a place of death. Between these two poles of land as a place of settlement and land as a place of crucifixion we get an eerie foreshadowing of contemporary conflicts and the conflicted status of land, especially for those who want to dwell in it and for those who have been driven from it. Land is both a place where people lay down healthy roots and pass it on to subsequent generations, and it is place with borders which are jealously protected in order to keep other people out. Land is both precious as a place to flourish and fraught with violence and oppression as people fight over it. Land is both that from which some people flee and it is that in which other people hope to live in safety for many generations to come. Land is both blessing and curse.
In today’s state of Israel there are some who want to claim its land exclusively for the descendants of the Jews as a kind of reparation for the horrendous attempts by Christians to exterminate the Jewish people throughout European history and especially in the Holocaust. Some contemporary Jews, especially in the settler movement, appeal to what they call the Biblical mandate to justify their occupation and control over the territory they call Judea and Samaria, including the West Bank, an area which others call the occupied territories. Invoking this mandate has led to the oppression, daily humiliation, and second-class status of the Palestinian people whose ancestors have lived on that land for centuries long before the establishment of the contemporary state of Israel in 1948. The Jewish people are themselves often conflicted about what to do with the land they believe was originally given to them by God but which they now can control only by making the Palestinians second-class citizens, appropriating the land on which they have built their homes, or expelling them. Of course there are some Palestinians who would like to see the state of Israel disappear and for this reason Israel has built walls both physical and legal to keep the Palestinians under tight restrictions. The Israelis can enjoy being on the land some call their own by divine mandate only by keeping a close watch on their Palestinian neighbors, which only increases hostility and mistrust, hardly building blocks for enjoying the land in peace and comfort. Land in this context is both blessing and curse.
Some folk in the western part of the United States have recently tried to occupy federal land without abiding by the laws which govern how that land is to be used. The outlaws in Oregon are claiming that the land belongs to them, not to the government. They forget of course that if original ownership of the land were the point, then the land should be returned to the Native Americans from whom it was taken by fraud and violence long ago. They also forget that public land is a blessing for the people of the country but a curse for those who want to occupy it for their own narrow selfish purposes.
The middle east outside Israel is also filled with people whose lives are being torn apart by bloody conflict over land and who will control it and determine who will live on it and under what conditions. The end result is the spiraling problem of refugees and migrants. This is a problem deeply rooted in the issue of land, territory, or geography. Our biblical passages once agains remind us that land can be both promise and death.
What then can we say? What can the Christian faith contribute to the resolution of the conflicts over territory and land that blight the world today? First, and perhaps of most immediate relevance, we can remind ourselves and our nation that our first loyalty is to persons who have suffered from violence in their native lands and have been driven from it exile or expulsion. It is not ultimately about loyalty to lines or borders on a map demarcating who belongs in which territory. The refugees who are fleeing oppression in their own country are first and foremost our neighbors, children of the same God as us. In the eyes of God their identity is not given primarily through their national or ethnic affiliation. A few weeks ago Drew Smith drew a wonderfully moving picture of the holy family of Jesus as a clear prototype of the refugee family, one which had to flee Bethlehem to get to safety in Egypt and later Nazareth. They crossed borders not defined by their regional identity but known to God for who they were as persons. They were returning to a land whose traditions included welcoming the sojourner or immigrant to whom the Israelites gave the same rights as themselves, who were the present occupiers of the land and who themselves had been sojourners after leaving Egypt and settling in the land of Canaan (which one might remember happened only after the slaughter and expulsion of its original inhabitants, the Canaanites). Land as both blessing and curse. While there are legitimate concerns about where to draw the borders of nations and who to allow to cross those borders, there is for people in the biblical tradition always the overarching concern for the exile, the refugee, the migrant as one who shares a common humanity, if not always a common faith or physical territory with us. Stoking the fear of the immigrant is antithetical to our deepest Christian values because our ancestors, both in Biblical times and more recently were all migrants at one time or another.
Our faith should also remind us that the occupation of the land and even our identity as citizens of a particular nation are provisional, not absolute, identities. National identity and the value of the nation of which we are members are contingent on an ever-changing history. They are always of lesser value than the imperative from God to treat all others, especially the refugees from war-torn lands, with love and acceptance, not with exclusion and discrimination.
Finally we can remind ourselves of the ancient Jewish and Christian virtue of hospitality, the gracious reception of others, especially travelers, who arrive at our doorstep unannounced and unexpected. Perhaps the greatest example of hospitality was found among peoples, such as the Bedouin who migrated in tents across the desert, ready to settle down temporarily or provisionally but always ready to pick up and move on as circumstances changed. They carried their identity from place to place with no fixed location. They could receive others with generosity because the defense of a fixed location was not central to their way of life.
Perhaps in these days of conflict over land and national and ethnic identity we might try to recover some of the spirit of the Bedouin practice of hospitality on the move. We certainly have more than enough abundant resources to share with those migrants and refugees fleeing to us from war and strife. If any people on earth can afford to be hospitable to those in need it is surely we in the United States whose abundance is only limited by our imagination and our self-seeking. We do not need to be like the Jerusalem Jesus entered, a city whose self-image was so exalted that it felt it needed to put to death those whose mission challenged its sense of self-importance. Puffing up so-called American exceptionalism is completely contrary to the Biblical mandate, not to occupy land but to extend love and hospitality to everyone regardless of ethnic or national identity. It is, as Pope Francis recently said, more Christian when building walls to also build bridges.
We do well to recall the words of Martin Luther King, recently echoed by our new Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry:
“We shall either learn to live together … or perish together as fools……The choice is ours, ‘chaos or community.’
Let’s opt for community: it’s part of our Christian DNA and it is the ultimate fulfillment of our souls and bodies.
Sermon for Lent 1C Dante A. Tavolaro, Seminarian Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford
Here we are once again embarking on our yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem, our yearly pilgrimage to the cross and the grave, to the upper room with the disciples and the empty tomb.
Like every other year, we gathered on Wednesday, we were marked with ashes, and invited to the observance of a holy Lent. We were invited to join in observances marked by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.
This year, as is true each Lenten Season, we thoughtfully revisit the legacy of the cross and the defining miracle it brought forth for each of us as Christians – the redefining miracle it gave to the world.
But this year is not like every other year.
Each and every day the world seems to be plagued by deeper and darker violence and sin. As the calls for love and justice grow louder, they are matched, and at times outdone, by calls of bigotry and hatred. In this country we are welcoming in refugees from one of the largest refugee crises the world has seen, we are observing an intense and brutal presidential primary season, as primary election results surprise and appall all sides of the political divide, and now we are preparing for what promises to be a very interesting process to fill Justice Scalia’s Supreme Court seat.
As is true for our country and world, this is not just another Lent for Trinity. We are now a parish with a part-time rector, we are facing massive budget cuts to be in compliance with diocesan regulations, and faithfully, with new urgency, we are discerning who God is calling us to be in this time and place. So we enter this Lenten season with uncertainty and maybe a little fear of what will happen on the other side.
It seems to me, now is the time to think a bit differently about Lent, to think a bit differently about our lives and relationships with God and one another. As we embark on this Lenten journey, we cannot remain fixated on our own sin; our own shortcomings; our own mortality. We must acknowledge these things, and then turn again towards God. As we begin this journey we must seek to ready ourselves for the inbreaking of God’s radical grace, abundance, and love.
The readings we have heard this morning from scripture help us do just that.
The story of the people of Israel that we hear in today’s passage from Deuteronomy is describing a liturgical act that is simultaneously confessing their beliefs, recounting their history, and offering their praise to the glory of God. They are confessing that the faithfulness of God to the people of Israel is the basis of their own lives, and from that place they are able not only to express their gratitude to God in praise, they are also able to claim the history of their people as their own story. This is more than, a simple “hey thanks God that was great” or “hey God we couldn’t have done it without you.” What we are hearing in Deuteronomy today is the climax of the exodus story.
Imagine this: after thirty-nine years, eleven months, and one week in the wilderness, the Israelites are gathered on the plains of Moab, poised to enter the promised land. After nearly forty years of feeling lost and unsure, having had to learn a mountain of laws and rules, after being chastised for bad behavior (which frankly was, at times, deserved), and after having spent a good deal of their journey being confused, underfed, and poorly housed – wondering why in the world they left Egypt in the first place – here they sit on the highlands overlooking the Jordan River Valley. The Promised Land is in sight!
That which they gave up everything for, that for which they have endured, worked, suffered, sacrificed, and even died for is finally within their grasp. The sense of God’s grace and blessings, in return for their faithfulness, must have been overwhelming.
And so this liturgical act of thanksgiving is the retelling of this remarkable history. It is the expression of their unending and profound gratitude to God for upholding God’s promises. Through this gratitude they offer up to God the first fruits of the land that God has given them – they are giving back to God what God has given them.
The journey of this Lenten season is not remarkably different from the journey to the priest to offer the first fruits of the ground. We can say this journey is about having to really think long and hard about our story; that we have to practice some daily or weekly disciplines to keep our story fresh in our minds; that we have to work harder to be better or more sincere Christians. But, is that the journey this text is really describing or is it the journey we have proscribed for ourselves?
Is Lent really about giving up chocolate, carbs, or alcohol? Is it really a liturgical self-help season to restart failed New Year’s resolutions? Or is that just a simplistic view of Lent? Is there something more?
I wonder if the journey we hear about today in Deuteronomy, the journey to which Lent calls us, is really about celebrating God’s unimaginable grace, abundance, and love? I wonder if it is about the overwhelming sense of God’s blessing in return for our faithfulness? I wonder if Lent is really about refocusing our attention and receptivity to God’s grace so that we may be worthy to participate in the mystery of God-with-us?
This idea of faithfulness to God, and constantly adjusting our focus on God’s call to us is not unique to the Israelite’s journey in Deuteronomy. It is also at the core of today’s Gospel passage: Luke’s telling of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.
This passage from Luke’s Gospel is at the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Jesus has just been baptized, the Holy Spirit descended on him, and a voice came from heaven proclaiming, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And being full of the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by that same Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.
The first time Jesus is tempted by the devil, the devil says, “If you are the Son of God.” This, according to some scholars, is a reasonable translation of the text. However, it is more likely that the accurate translation should be “Since you are the Son of God.” After Jesus’ baptism there is no question “if he is the Son of God.” The question now is what kind of Son of God will he be. Will he be the Messiah who takes the easy way out? Or will he be the Messiah who is faithful to God?
These three temptations – turning the rock into bread, claiming all the power and authority of the kingdoms of the world, and testing God – are incredibly important. First they are not necessarily bad things. How bad could it be for Jesus to start ending world hunger by converting the rocky terrain of Jerusalem into bread? How bad could it be for Jesus to claim the power and authority away from the brutal power of the Roman Empire? How bad could it be for Jesus to ask a sign of God? This is the point. Can Jesus be lured away to take the easy way out? Can his followed be tricked into following the comfortable Messiah? Instead of falling for these temptations, Jesus abides by the most difficult of all commands as he quotes the words of Deuteronomy to “worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”
Luke’s portrayal of Jesus, the meaning of his earthly ministry and Baptism is unfolded in these three trials. While he refused to turn stones into bread, he spends his ministry feeding the hungry. While he refused political power, his preaching and teaching are proclamations of God’s empire of love and justice. While he refused to test God, he goes to the cross in confidence that God’s will for life, will trump the world’s decision to execute him.
Each and every time Jesus’ tempted to take the easy way out – to follow the comfortable path, he says no. By saying “no” to the world, he is saying, “yes” to God. As such, today’s Gospel text is not about the power of evil, the nature of Christ, or the power of temptation: this Gospel passage is about obedience – Jesus’ choice to be obedient to God, and our invitation to follow in his footsteps. It is our invitation to say, “no” to easy answers and half-truths and to loudly proclaim, “yes” to God. To shout “yes” to God’s love, to shout “yes” to God’s grace, to shout “yes” to God’s call to action and service.
Jesus’ journey in the wilderness recalls Israel’s forty years of wandering. In the harsh environment of the wilderness, habits formed by the Israelites while in slavery in Egypt are discarded and new ways of complete trust in God are formed. Jesus is the perfect example of this trusting relationship. As we enter into this wilderness season of Lent we are invited to discard all the habits we have picked up while being held by the bondages of sin and death and replace them with the perfect freedom that comes from obedience and service to God.
The season of Lent reminds us that we do not have to be stuck in slavery, that we do not need to be stuck in the way we have always done things. Renewal is possible. Change can happen. Because 40 days from now, the second person of the Trinity, the divine Son of God, Jesus will die on the cross. He will descend into hell, break down the gates of death once and for all, and rise victorious from the grave.
Jesus begins this journey, he enters the wilderness, only after being baptized and claimed as Beloved. We too have shared in those waters of Baptism. We too have been claimed as Beloved of God.
Jan Richardson, artist and poet, beautifully captures the importance of our identity as Beloved children of God on this wilderness journey. She writes:
If you would enter
into the wilderness,
do not begin
without a blessing.
Do not leave
without hearing
who you are:
Beloved,
named by the One
who has traveled this path
before you.
Do not go
without letting it echo
in your ears,
and if you find
it is hard
to let it into your heart,
do not despair.
That is what
this journey is for.
I cannot promise
this blessing will free you
from danger,
from fear,
from hunger
or thirst,
from the scorching
of sun
or the fall
of the night.
But I can tell you
that on this path
there will be help.
I can tell you
that on this way
there will be rest.
I can tell you
that you will know
the strange graces
that come to our aid
only on a road
such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort
and strength,
that come alongside us
for no other cause
than to lean themselves
toward our ear
and with their
curious insistence
whisper our name:
Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.
As we enter into Lent, as we embark on this year unlike any other, as we set out into the unknown may we be assured that God is with us and that we are Beloved.
Sermon 02.07.16, Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford, CT The Rev. Bonnie Matthews, Deacon Transfiguration Year C
Exodus 34:29-35, 2 Corinthians 3:2-4:2, Luke 9:28-36 [37-43a]
In the name of God who invites us to be changed into God’s likeness. Amen
Last week in Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians we were presented with a hint of what was to come in this week’s scripture readings. We need to look hard at those who surround us, our response to the other and out reception to change. If we do that with humility, perhaps we shall find the likeness of God.
2 Corinthians: When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Because I have chosen to interpret these words to instruct me in my daily life they are powerful words.
I’m not certain why, but I’m amazed that these words have as much impact today, as they did two thousand years ago. I think what amazes me is that as brothers and sisters in Christ our human nature has changed very little and the need for us to recall God’s love for us continues.
Because this lesson is frequently read during the service of marriage, I believe we associate these verses to be instruction for two individuals committed to love for each other. I better understand these words of love to be shared not between two but among many.
Today the more difficult portion of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians continues as we hear an invitation to better reflect what God has created through love:
And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, The Spirit.
Throughout creation and through covenant God has revealed himself to us in love. God doesn’t isolate or separate those that are loved, rather God offers love inclusively.
And by example, God’s love, revealed to the world, is to be shared throughout all of creation. This love which is to be shared isn’t only to be shared with those who are like us, or those who are of the same mind as we are. It is love to be shared with all.
I recognize the enormity of these words. This is a tall order and it is one not to be taken lightly.
Because of events in our world these past few weeks, months, and years, the timing of this message can’t be more important.
If you listen to the news, read a paper, or check what is happening through electronic media accounts you can recognize the importance of these words. Even the latest TV shows have highlighted and are focusing on racial and ethnic profiling. I’m wondering if these shows are an example of the unconscious, and regrettably, for some the conscious acceptance of profiling as a day to day occurrence or are they meant to make us more aware of our unconscious prejudices and the need to change. If one frees oneself to actually hear the news (and here I am not talking about the good news of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ) one may realize that it is fraught with acts of racism and ethnic profiling.
Recently I have had the opportunity to read two books which have awakened my soul to racism. I did not understand and still do not fully understand what people of color or certain ethnic groups face on a daily basis. The first book is The New Jim Crow (Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness) authored by Michelle Alexander and the second book is America’s Original Sin (Racism, White Privilege and the Bridge to a New America) by Jim Wallis.
Reading these two books has allowed me to name the fact that I am a product of white privilege. These books have shown me that I cannot just accept that I am a person of white privilege. Rather, I must name that white privilege and use it (in the words of a cherished friend and colleague) to be a better ally to those who experience racism in our world, our state, and our cities or towns.
I would like to take this naming of white privilege for myself to another level and suggest that all who live in any type of privilege must take another step forward in naming our differences. We must remove the veil from our face.
How do we remove the veil from our faces to better see the glory of the Lord, transforming ourselves to be a better reflection of God’s love? I don’t know the answer to that nor should I know the answer. I believe that walking together in love and respect with the “other” we can find some the answers right here in this neighborhood.
This community of Trinity Episcopal Church, with all of its diversity, allows each of us to experience and embrace our differences. What a wonderful gift we have been given in making this our spiritual home.
We as a community and as individuals have the opportunity to embrace, experience, understand and celebrate our differences to the fullest extent.
Over the next months we will have the privilege (yes I have turned a word within the context of this sermon to grow from a negative experience to a positive experience) to allow ourselves to ally with the “other”.
On February 21st there will be a meeting with Chris George of IRIS speaking to us regarding refugee resettlement and the possibility of forming a coalition of 10 people to resettle a refugee family in Hartford.
As an extension of Trinity Institute conference “Listen for a Change: Sacred Conversations for Racial Justice” beginning next Sunday Trinity Hartford will continue our previous town hall meeting on overcoming racism through conversation and understanding. For if we cannot speak with one another and experience with one another, how are we to better understand one another.
Once again the Outreach Committee is offering a Lenten Calendar of Service which includes suggested action ideas for your use as a Lenten Discipline. Without the knowledge of the Outreach Committee, I am proposing that those acts of service include acts that will reveal your commitment to better understand the “other” in the world around you.
If we are intentional, we may be surprised about where we meet the “others” in our lives. If we are living in the Spirit we will not be surprised by our response.
Let me quote from our scripture again:
And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
I don’t believe the Glory of the Lord is revealed only in the mirror of our actions (making us exclusive) rather I believe the Glory of the Lord is revealed to us in what we see, how we understand and finally our transformative response.
I subscribe to the daily devotion Brother Give Us a Word. These devotions are from The Society of St John the Evangelist, a monastic community of the Episcopal Church and The Anglican Church of Canada. The daily word is included in scripture and a sermon is attached.
In mid-January the daily word was Revelation. Intentionally there was no sermon attached to this word. Rather it was a quote by Herbert Slade a priest and member of SSJE for all who read it to reflect and act.
Brother Herbert wrote:
God is always being revealed and the revelation is never complete. The Spirit who leads into all truth continually proceeds both from the divine nature in terms of revelation and from the human nature in terms of reception. There is no end to the process. -Herbert Slade, SSJE (1912-1999)
Jeremiah 1:4-10 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 Luke 4:21-30
How many of you have ever watched the PBS Masterpiece Theatre Series Downton Abbey? It’s on each Sunday night at 9 p.m. Now in its 6th season, the series depicts the lives of the aristocratic Crawley Family, headed by Robert Crawley, also known as the Earl of Grantham. They all live in a grand Yorkshire country estate known as Downton Abbey, along with their crew of servants. It is set in early 20th Century England and over its six seasons the viewer has lived with the family and their servants through personal tragedies and triumphs, trials and intrigues even as we witness the changing social landscape in aristocratic England and the rest of the world.
Now, I don’t watch much television and I confess I had not seen so much as an episode until the third season. I watched it because Debbie was watching it, along with half my friends. Except I hated it. I hated the aristocrats with their sense of privilege and feelings of entitlement. I hated what they stood for. I didn’t feel sorry for them when it turns out that their lavish lifestyle and their poor investments of their inherited wealth required that, essentially, they marry into more money in order to keep the whole operation going. I hated that the servants were trapped in a kind of permanent caste system, even as they upheld this system that supported them and provided them with a certain sense of security. I had trouble keeping the characters straight because they all looked alike to me.
In the fourth season I continued to struggle, but at least kept the characters straight. In last year’s episodes, I found that I was actually beginning to get into the show a little bit, getting to know the characters better and coming to appreciate their situations. I still bristled when the aristocrats had their servants prepare them to mount their horses and take a hundred dogs to chase a single fox.
And this year I find I am actually engaged, looking forward to each new episode. I have actually begun to sympathize with them, at least a bit, when the neighboring estate has to be auctioned off and the Crawley family dutifully goes over to share their condolences. I have a touch of empathy as we see one of the servants, trying to get a senior position at another estate, finds that each estate is worse off than the previous one, teetering on the brink of suffering the same fate of having to be auctioned off, as the aging owners sit in despair waiting for society to reverse itself and return to the halcyon days when the job of the rich was to manage their estates.
And it suddenly dawned on me as I watched the show about three weeks ago, as I saw the neighboring estate up for auction, as I watched the various members of the Crawley family wishing their neighbors well and watching their priceless family heirlooms on sale for pennies on a dollar, as I heard of the neighbor’s plans to take a small apartment in London, I thought, “My God, this could be Trinity.”
n They live in a beautiful, huge, expensive mansion that their shrinking resources can no longer maintain. Among the financial figures that you will hear later this morning is that this building and associated costs swallows up a full 50% or more of our annual pledge income.
n They are living off of inherited wealth that they neither merited nor earned – they simply have come into it by the chance of birth or association through marriage. While very few of us were actually “born into” our Trinity family, the fact is that as far back as the 19th century, clergy and wardens were cautioning the congregation that it could not continue to rely on its endowment – its inherited wealth – for operations – either that, or it needed a far bigger endowment. When I was called as your rector, one of the conditions that the diocese set was that the congregation cut its expenses. And, with the exception of capital expenditures to preserve our buildings, we have been doing that ever since I arrived here.
n They are living a lifestyle that is a throwback to another era, challenged by modern technology and a shifting political and social climate. The fact is, the paradigm of the church as many of us grew to know it and love it in the mid-and even late-20th century is no longer a sustainable model in the 21st century. Please hear me: I am not saying that we should, as it is said, throw out the baby with the bathwater. There are many, perhaps even most, of the traditions and practices we have inherited that still further God’s mission, that should be honored and nurtured. But we have in our own congregation two religious leaders – retired bishop Drew Smith and retired Methodist District Superintendent Dennis Winkleblack – who have watched the pattern across denominations for years. Professor Scott Thumma, my advisor at Hartford Seminary, has spent his career studying this phenomenon. More and more across the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, we are seeing the pattern that when a full-time rector leaves, the position is filled by a part-time Rector or Priest in Charge. The very same thing just happened at our sister church down the street, Grace Lutheran. It was only last month that the Vestry of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Waterbury – an urban church with a proud history – voted to sell their building. It is a reality that we at least have to acknowledge as we look at our future, and certainly not one that we can ignore.
So I saw these parallels with our situation at Trinity. And in the very next instant, I breathed a sigh of relief and thought, “But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Because unlike the folk on Downton Abbey, we together are far more than an anachronistic social society. We together are built on far more than the accident of where and to whom we were born along with the bank account and social entitlements that came with them. We are the Body of Christ, built upon the strong rock of our faith, Jesus Christ, and the testimony of those down through the ages who have assured us that God does have a plan for us.
For more than a decade, our Treasurers have been telling us that we are overdrawing on our endowment. A number of things have been suggested – that we increase our membership and that will expand our pledge base. If we “just get the word out” about what a great group of Christians we are more people will be drawn to join us. All of these and others are great ideas and should be part of any plan. But the fact of the matter is that unlike almost all Episcopal churches in the area, we ARE growing, our income from parishioner offerings IS GROWING, we DO have young families in the congregation. And yet – and yet – the endowment continues to shrink as we continue to draw excessive amounts in order to keep the property – our Downton Abbey – afloat.
Our dilemma for 2016 is framed by two resolutions that came out of our Diocesan Convention this past November.
Any church that does not contribute to the diocese an amount equal to 10% of its prior years’ operating expenses for two years in a row will be considered an “aided parish” and basically lose its right to manage its own finances.
Any congregation that draws more than 25% of its endowment over a three year period is also to be considered an “aided parish.”
The bad news is that Trinity, as it has been operating until recently, was running afoul of both of these resolutions. The result: If we did nothing differently, by early 2017 the diocesan financial officer would show up to take control of our remaining endowment and begin managing it for us, severely restricting our access to it. Now, we can bristle at this and complain. But the fact is, even without diocesan intervention, if we continued to spend as we have in the past, we would run out of money on our own in the next 3 years so.
And so your Vestry has taken the courageous step to review our operations and make some dramatic cuts in the 2016 budget that will set us on a firmer financial footing and establish a strategic foundation on which to build for the future. These cuts also buy us some valuable time to explore alternative futures for us and all of the Episcopal churches in the Hartford area. We will highlight those specific budget and program areas during the discussion that will take place following our worship this morning.
But let’s look beyond money to look at what Christ’s church is really about, and that is mission. In some ways, we have been building for an alternative future for a number of years.
n Five years ago, when we officially became a “one clergy on staff” parish, we introduced our system of Ministry Liaisons, in which experienced and dedicated lay leaders take on the primary responsibility of coordinating the individual ministries in the areas of Christian Formation, Outreach, Worship and Parish Care. That system has been strengthening for five years, and will now have more of an impact than ever.
n Our Vestry commissioned the study by Partners for Sacred Places which you all received last summer, a study which makes specific recommendations over the next 12 to 18 months for ways in which Trinity can continue to grow its ministries even in the midst of the societal and financial challenges facing us. The budget choices which have been made for 2016 go a long way to addressing some of those challenges.
n And my own Hartford Seminary Doctor of Ministry project, the Mission Discernment Initiative, which reported to us in late summer of this past year also took an in-depth look at our ministries and made recommendations about possible paths to a healthy and robust future.
Facing change is never easy, and leading it is even more daunting. We wait for someone else to show us how to do it, hoping that some ecclesiastical super-hero is going to rise up and make everything better. Look at the Prophet Jeremiah – we saw this morning how he resisted his call to lead change. Like Moses did before him, when the Lord asks him to take up his ministry, he protests, “I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” He revisits this theme in various ways throughout the book. But notice how God responds: Do not say, ‘I am only a boy,” for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Unlike our Downton Abbey friends, we are not meant by God to sit in our Temple on Sigourney Street and wait for the next great thing to happen. Our manor house, sacred as it is, is not to be an end in itself: It is a place of welcome, hope and healing where God’s chosen are called, fed and nurtured not to rest happy in that, but so that they can go out into the world to the glory of the God who both calls us and sends us.
God also tells Jeremiah that his task will be to pull up and pluck down those things which do not serve God, and also to build up and plant what will become the fruit of God’s mission. It is a full-scaled renewal of the creation to re-align it with God’s mission for the future.
But perhaps most importantly, going back to my opening discussion of the Downton Abbey family, look at what God tells Jeremiah at the very beginning of the passage: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Unlike the characters from British aristocracy, Jeremiah’s mission is not based on his ancestry or his station in life; it has nothing to do with his abilities or what he has shown himself to be capable of – it is based on God’s call to him. Jeremiah is kind of the “everyman” of Biblical heroes. And what he is called to is to tell his people that God desires more for them – and expects more of them – as a community of faith.
At our Vestry meeting last week, we talked about all kinds of alternatives for Trinity and who we are as a community of faith. And for the first time, we forced ourselves to wonder out loud what would happen if we sold this building. It was pointed out – correctly – that the parish of Trinity Church is more than the building in which it meets. It is the mutual bonds of affection and care that we share, coupled with our baptismal covenant to follow and further the work of Jesus Christ, that makes us a church. And we as a community of faith must at least have this discussion over the next couple of years: How much of who we are as a parish is tied into this building, in this neighborhood of Asylum Hill? We are not going to answer this question today, but we do need to know this: If we determine – as well we may – that this much beloved house of worship is to continue as part of our identity, then we have to develop in the very near future a realistic plan for doing so.
We at Trinity Church – in the Christian church in general—share Jeremiah’s call. It is the same call each of us received in our baptism, a call to renewal that many of us committed to just three weeks ago. God is calling us to something greater than we have been, and God has promised, through the incarnation of Jesus the Christ, to provide us with all that we need to accomplish God’s deepest desires for us. So let us gather strength and courage for the journey in our worship, and having been fed with the spiritual food of Jesus’ Body and Blood, approach the work our Lord sets before us. The Lord does lead us through times of change; life is always changing, for as Paul writes in 1st Corinthians: For we know only in part, and we prophecy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. . . For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.Now I know only in part; then I will know fully . . . In the words of the blessing from the Daily Office, Glory to God, whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to God from generation to generation in the church, and in Christ Jesus, for ever and ever. AMEN.
There are 1 callout(s)
Put your faith in action
It is God who calls us together into a community of faith. It is not a random happenstance: God calls us to our location on Asylum Hill as the spiritual base from which we live out our call to minister in Jesus' name.
