The Scandal of Baptism

The Baptism of Our Lord

Acts 19:1-7

Mark 1:4-11

The Rev. Joshua Rodriguez-Hobbs

You know, I find it funny how much we like baptisms, how we make them into a party, because the four evangelists all seem a little embarrassed by Jesus’ baptism. Mark, writing first, puts words into John the Baptizer’s mouth, letting us know in uncertain terms that Jesus is more important than John. Matthew has John refuse to baptize Jesus at first. In fact, in Matthew’s story, John asks Jesus to baptize him! Jesus has to insist that John baptize him, not because he himself needs it, but so that they might “fulfill all righteousness,” whatever that means (Matthew doesn’t explain). Luke conveniently forgets to tell us who baptized Jesus, saying simply, “Jesus was baptized.” And in the sequel to his gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, Luke includes that strange story we heard read this morning, where we learn that John’s baptism really didn’t count after all. And, finally, John just skips over Jesus’ baptism entirely. In fact, in John’s Gospel, John the Baptizer doesn’t actually baptize anyone and he isn’t called “the Baptizer;” he’s just “John,” and he just talks about baptism without ever actually doing it.

So why were the evangelists embarrassed by Jesus’ baptism? It’s right there in Mark’s original account, which we just heard this morning: “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” We don’t typically think of Jesus as needing forgiveness of sins, do we? The evangelists don’t seem to want to tell this story, but it appears that it was a well-known one, so well-known that three of the four felt like they couldn’t just omit it. So they tell us that Jesus didn’t really need John’s baptism, or that the baptism of John was different from the baptism that Jesus’ disciples practiced. They shift the emphasis from John’s baptism of repentance to the vision Jesus has afterward, where he sees the Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove, strengthening him with God’s grace at the beginning of his public ministry.

I wonder if, deep down, we don’t all feel similarly today. Arianne mentioned in her sermon last week that the church’s original practice was to baptize adults, people who could actually repent for sins they’d committed. For a variety of reasons, a lot of which had to do with Christianity becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire, the church changed this practice and began baptized children. Even though, since 1979, our Prayer Book in the Episcopal Church has actually promoted adult baptism as normative, most people baptized in an Episcopal Church today are children. Infants, in fact. Last week, when we baptized Jack and Jamey, that was the first time I’ve ever baptized someone old enough to speak for themselves!

I think we like baptizing children, because they are cute and adorable. It’s easy to baptize infants, because they won’t object to putting on that heirloom baptismal gown, and they photograph so nicely, and we can get right on to the party, without thinking too much about sin and our own need for forgiveness.

Baptism is scandalous, because the church believes that we are reborn through our encounter with those waters. Everything about us before baptism is washed away in God’s eyes. Babies bring so little baggage with them to the font. Adults would bring full matching luggage sets with us, wouldn’t we?

That forgiveness of past sins, freely given, is not the most scandalous thing about baptism, though. The church has always proclaimed that the mark of baptism is indelible. It can’t be redone. When I baptize a person, after I have poured water on them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, I dip my finger into special oil and make the sign of the cross on their forehead and make a promise: You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. No matter what happens from that point on in that person’s life, they are Christ’s own. In other words, they are forgiven, not just of whatever they have done, but also of whatever they will do.

In our collect this morning, we prayed: “Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made…” The fact is that none of us will. None of us can. We enter into baptism, knowing none of us can keep the promises that we make. And God bestows grace upon us anyway. God loves us anyway. God speaks the same words to each of us that Jesus heard: “You are my son, you are my daughter, the beloved; with you I am well pleased." The forgiveness we find in baptism is the forgiveness that we will need when we fall short. We all constantly need that forgiveness. It’s easy to forget that when we baptize adorable children, but it’s still true.

Baptism illustrates the central truth of the Christian life: we are saved entirely by God’s grace. There is nothing that we can to do earn or deserve forgiveness. It is always freely given, offered before we can ever ask. We don’t earn forgiveness. We don’t merit grace. We don’t save ourselves. We can’t. God saves us, just as God upholds our end of the covenant we make with God at baptism. God’s faithfulness always covers our unfaithfulness, no matter how egregious that unfaithfulness is.

As Jack and Jamey and I were preparing for our baptism, I told them that there was one thing that they should remember about their baptism, even if they forgot everything else I had said: Baptism is forever. Whatever you do, God will always love you. Nothing can ever make you unlovable, because Christ has already claimed you as his own. This is the scandalous, life-changing truth of baptism. This is the scandalous, life-changing truth of grace. This is the scandalous, life-changing truth of the Gospel: we don’t deserve forgiveness, but God gives forgives anyway. Amen.

Christmastide: Humanity Restored

Jeremiah 31:7-14 

Luke 2:41-52 

Periodically we’re given a choice in the lectionary over the gospel.  This Sunday, is one of those.

So three weeks ago, Jen, our parish admin, came into my office and said, you’re preaching on the 4^th – which gospel do you want?  Because of the holidays, and office being closed, we needed to get this bulletin done before Christmas.  I looked at the choices:

First choice was the story of an angel appearing to Joseph in a dream, warning him to take Mary and Jesus and get to Egypt quick – because Herod was out to get them.  I didn’t want that scripture – mostly because it’s one I’ve preached on a few times.  I didn’t foresee wanting to talk about dreams at the start of the New Year.

The second choice was also from Matthew – the story of the magi telling Herod about seeing the star.  We start Epiphany next Sunday, and while it’s not a season, but an event – there will be six weeks of hearing stories of Christ revealing himself – so I didn’t foresee wanting to preach on that either.

I picked, obviously, this story that we only get in Luke and is one of the few stories about Jesus as a boy – not a baby or a man – but a tween.  And look, I said to Jen in my office that day – the passage has one of my favorite topics to preach on – when Mary says to Jesus, “Your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” 

Jen looked puzzled – and I laughed – it’s rare, I explained that we get words in the bible that have such an immediate resonance to our time and place.  And anxiety is certainly one of those words. 

What I didn’t foresee, three weeks ago, was how much anxiety I would be feeling in the week leading up to this sermon. A week that included a very sad and public event for our church.   I’m sure you know what I refer to – last Saturday our Bishop Heather Cook struck and killed Thomas Palermo as he rode his bike on Roland Avenue.

That is heartbreaking enough – but then we learned she left the scene of the accident, only later to return. We can’t understand how someone, especially a clergy person, let alone a bishop, could do that.

And the subsequent news that has been most prominent this week is the release of that she was charged in 2010 for a DUI; which has led to speculation and assumptions about this tragedy and public debate about what qualifies a person to be an ordained, religious leader. 

This stirs up a lot of anxiety.  It is all deeply troubling.  Which was clear to me from the calls and emails I received and the myriad of reactions I read on Facebook.  My anxiety is mostly about my desire, standing here, to preach the sermon that makes all of you feel really good about being Episcopalians and renews faith in your church and our pastoral leaders.

Let’s start with that word: faith.  Faith – in the letter to the Hebrews – is defined as the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (11:1).  What is it we hope for?  The Christian hope is that all people, individually and collectively along with all creation, will one day be reconciled to God.  An image painted by our prophet Jeremiah in the first reading.  Our primary image, though, is Jesus.  We believe Jesus always knew oneness with God.  That’s why he gives his smart aleck response to his parents – basically saying – where else would I be but in my Father’s house?  How could you not know to look for me here?

But this oneness with God is not ultimately about being in a temple or a church – it’s about a completeness.  An intellectual, emotional and spiritual awareness of the connection to the divine within.  That’s what Jesus gave up to be human.  That’s the sacrifice God made for us (Philippians 2:1ff) In a famous quote from a bishop in the 2^nd century – God became human, so that we might become divine. The person of Jesus, the life of Jesus shows what is available and possible for us.

We hope for that completeness, that reconciliation – and we claim conviction in it – because we so rarely see it, in ourselves or others.  Do you look in the mirror each morning and enthusiastically exclaim – there I am, made in the image of God!  Or are you like me, when I look in the mirror – I see flaws.  I see my humanity, my aging, my flaws, and remember my mistakes and struggles.  I can clearly see all the ways I do not even come close to measuring up to what I think an image of God should look like.

But there is what we prayed together to collect our thoughts for this worship service.  A prayer which describes the Incarnation we celebrate at Christmas. The radical, almost incomprehensible truth of what God, in the person of Jesus did for us – O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored the dignity of human nature, grant that we may share in that divine life.  (BCP 214)

                                                                                                                       

For five centuries the normative practice in the church was to baptize adults, who could make promises for themselves after a period of study.  For reasons that had more to do with church expansion than anything else that changed to the practice of infant baptism.  And it is that tradition that has remained normative, despite the theology of our current prayer book.  Personally, I have yet to do an adult baptism.  And I think, one of the reasons the tradition holds is because when we look on infants and children, it is easier to see the dignity of human nature.  We see innocence and goodness.  We see possibility and hope.  We see the image of God in the children of God.  We see what we were.

God says – you still are.  You are still a child of God, and always will be.  You, in your humanness with all your failings and struggles and doubts – you have been restored – free to live without shame and fear – made worthy to stand before God.  It is accepting this truth which sets us free.  It is only in accepting this truth that we are able to cultivate compassion towards others.

When I returned to church as an adult – after that phase almost all of us go through, and some of us stay in – where we leave church because of the people and the problems that disappoint or anger us, or the inevitably hypocrisy between what we say we are and what we do – when I found the Episcopal church – it was a phrase in one of our post-communion prayers that got me every time.

Eternal God, heavenly Father – you have graciously accepted us (BCP 365).  Still to this day, there are times when I say that phrase – and I’m done.  I can’t keep speaking because it is too overwhelming for me to believe that God accepts me as I am – with all of my failings, my mistakes, my sins, my doubts and my fears.  It is too overwhelming to believe I am worthy of this love – this forgiveness and compassion.  It is too overwhelming to believe that in the act of bringing my brokenness to that altar to receive the body of Christ (which as it says in the psalms is the only sacrifice God wants (Ps 51:17) – my human nature is once again restored.

New Year’s resolutions – commendable as they may be – are not what will make us whole.  They are not what will make us feel worthy.  We are worthy with and through the brokenness.  For something to be reconciled and restored means it had to be broken first.  There could not have been a resurrection without that broken, vulnerable body on the cross.

In 1912, a German theologian named Ernst Troeltsch wrote, “There is no absolute Christian ethic that awaits discovery…There is no absolute transformation of [who we are]…all that exists is a constant wrestling with the problems that arise.”

We are all Christians.  We are all human and we are all holy.  We are, in the words of Martin Luther, to remember we are simultaneously sinner and saint.  That is the body of Christ.  That is what we call the Church.

At 9am we have a baptism and it’s the start of a new year.  It is a good day for all of us to say the Nicene Creed through the renewal of our baptismal covenant.  It is a good day to remember what we promise as a community that stands with people in their joys and their sorrows, that wrestles with the problems of our time in love and with compassion.  It is a good day to remind ourselves of our promises to strive to make known in words and deeds what the reconciliation of God looks like.

Let us pray.  O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their restoration by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP 280)

The Rev. Arianne R. Weeks

A Call to Prayer

Dear Friends in Christ,

I write this letter to ask the members of our community to pray.

The traffic accident this weekend that resulted in the death of Thomas Palermo is such a tragedy.  And then there is the earth shattering news that it was caused by one of our bishops, the Rt. Rev. Heather Cook, who for reasons we do not yet know left the scene of the accident only later to return.

Please read Bishop Sutton’s pastoral letter to our diocese regarding this situation.  You may also want to read the statement the diocese released today that explains the search process.  Both are found on the home page of our diocesan website: www.ang-md.org.

Please consider that social media is not always an ideal platform to learn the most accurate information or for drawing conclusions.

It has been my experience when the ground under our feet gives way we want to rush to judgment, answers, and quick fixes.  It is much harder to sit with pain and sadness that we cannot fix.  But that is exactly what we are called to do as Christians who were shown God’s redemption through the life of one who walked through pain and sadness for us.

Sometimes all we can do is pray.  Pray for Thomas Palermo and his family who grieves.  Pray for Bishop Cook.  Pray for Bishop Sutton and your brothers and sisters in Christ in this diocese.  Go to church on Sunday (or before) and hear the story of God’s redemption told through the ages, pray the prayers with God’s people and remember the love made known to us through the breaking of the bread.

This Sunday we will pray these words together in our opening collect; may we remember our humanity and that each one of us is created to be a witness to the light we celebrate during Christmastide.

O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

In Peace,
Arianne+

The Reverend Arianne R. Weeks
Rector

Stir it up Sunday!

Third Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Rejoice in the Lord always!  And again I say rejoice!

Those words to Paul’s people in Thessalonica are the theme for the third Sunday in Advent – Gaudete or Joy Sunday.  It might seem odd to have a joy Sunday – in the holiday season – but Advent is a penitential season.  Two Sundays of John the Baptist remind us that we are preparing for Christ’s coming, and in repentance we find joy.  There is joy in waiting – just as there is joy in greeting.

And how could we not hear the joy in Isaiah’s proclamation – God has sent the prophets to bring good news to the oppressed and bind up the brokenhearted.  To proclaim the year of our Lord’s favor and to comfort all who mourn.

Just as last week we heard Isaiah encouraging God’s people to return from exile and come home – we now hear Isaiah being a cheerleader of sorts.  The people have a monumental task of rebuilding ahead of them.  They have been gone for decades and the Jerusalem they return to has been decimated.  All the signs of God’s presence and strength, especially the temple, lay in ruins. Think of rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina – or Japan after a tsunami.

The people need words of encouragement and hope.  The people need to believe that it is they who will be called “oaks of righteousness” – that the people themselves – tired and overwhelmed as they feel – will be able to build up the ruins – raise up the former devastations.  The people are the planting of the Lord and the people themselves are the display of God’s glory.


You see the task before them isn’t just the rebuilding of a city – it is a rebuilding of their faith, their belief, and their trust that God is with them and would again work wonders.  Maybe some of us have experienced – surely all of us have seen a news story – when after a natural disaster or some devastating change to our home or community people return home, speechless with tears streaming down their face.  Just to face the task ahead requires every ounce of internal courage.

That is the prayer we prayed in our collect – stir up your power O Lord, so we might stir up our courage.  Isaiah is trying to stir the power of God up within God’s people – to help them see that they have it within themselves to repair the ruined cities and reclaim their mantle of praise.

Isaiah is trying to stir up their joy.

That’s the thing about joy isn’t it?  Sometimes we feel it – and sometimes we don’t!  It’s why if you’ve been here the past two weeks – there is clearly a theme Josh and I keep touching on….the difference between the Advent of the church and the spirit of the holiday season.  The later doesn’t care whether you feel it – it just puts tremendous pressure on you to show it.  Remember that Billy Crystal character from SNL in the 80’s, when he would say, “It’s better to look good than to feel good, dahling!”

But the joy in our faith is something entirely different and it’s not about what’s on the outside.  In John’s gospel Jesus says, I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you – and your joy be made complete.  Joy is that feeling of completeness in God.  That awareness that to rest in God’s hand is enough – because we know we are held – we know we are guided – we know we are being wholly restored through that connection.

God’s joy is found in our restoration.  It is why when Jesus enters the temple to put on his mangle of authority in Luke’s gospel he unrolls the scrolls and quotes Isaiah’s text.  He announces that he is the anointed one who has come to restore the people through the good news of God’s freedom and release.

We are not a people returning from exile – so what does restoration look like for us?

I think Isaiah encourages two levels, or ways of answering that question.  The first is what we do together – how we let God work through us and with us to repair the ruined cities and the devastations of many generations.

I have a bumper sticker on the window sill in my office that says – if you love peace, work for justice.  God’s restoration is the great reversal – when liberty is proclaimed to the captives and release to the prisoners.  When Mary proclaims in the Magnificat – and the mighty are cast down from their thrones as the lowly are lifted up!

The captives and the prisoners that Isaiah is referring to are the people who have come home.  They have been oppressed and enslaved through an unjust system that has been overthrown.

You don’t need me to tell you we live in a world – Christmas time or not – replete with unjust systems.  There are riots and protests in St. Louis, and New York and Baltimore that are trying to shine light on the unjust systems still in place and coming out of a long narrative of injustice that our country was built upon.  We are called to get stirred up about it.  We are called to educate ourselves and wrestle with our questions and our disagreements.

Maybe some of you read or heard something about the 2014 Unicef report on the state of the world’s children.  It’s not good.  In fact 2014 has been one of the worst on record for the children of our world.  The report chronicles a litany of violence, war, atrocities, and disease.  Up to 15 million children are directly entangled in violent conflicts.  The executive director of Unicef was quoted as saying, “Never in recent memory have so many children been subjected to such unspeakable brutality.” (NYTimes, 12/9/14)

The task of restoration – of restoring justice and peace in these places may seem impossible.  The numbers too large – the places too foreign and too far away, even when they are pretty close to home.  But that’s why we ask God to stir up God’s power.  Stir us up through prayer – through witness – through paying attention to the injustice in our world and shining light upon it.

And know that right now, our church is engaged in doing just this.  This weekend we are entering into a new partnership with Habitat.  Joining hands again with other churches to rebuild houses in Govans – right down the street – in addition to Sandtown farther in the city.  In both places building up from the devastation of past generations. We build-up people through the new ministry of 1K churches this year.  Seeking individuals who need the first investment in themselves so that, in the tag line of the ministry team – we don’t just give someone a fish to eat for a day, we teach them how to fish and eat for a lifetime.  And empower them to be the ‘oak of righteousness’ in their community that will be planted and shine forth the Lord’s glory. That is working for justice – that is working for peace.

Our preparing for God is helping to make the pathway straight – in the world and in our hearts.  This is the other work of restoration that we are called to do in this season – and it is internal and personal work.  Just as we are often frustrated or angry that God isn’t intervening fast enough to alleviate the suffering in our world, there are ways in which we are frustrated that God hasn’t alleviated the suffering in our individual lives.  Name them before God.  That line in our psalm – those who sowed with tears, will reap with songs of joy.  That’s one of the reasons we are having a Blue Christmas service next Sunday.

When we lift something up in prayer – even, perhaps most especially, our hurt or anger or disappointment – we are taking a step towards healing, we make a way for the Lord in our hearts.  To deny those feelings within ourselves – to try and look good over feeling good – doesn’t last.  But God’s faithful covenant does.   When Isaiah speaks of these garments of joy that cover him – the robe of righteousness, the garland and the jewels of joy – those are the outward signs of the inward grace, the inward joy.  And the tears to get there don’t have to be hidden – they have to be wept.  Those who go out weeping, will come again with joy.

So on this third Sunday of Advent as we prepare – let us rejoice always, pray without ceasing.  Pray that God will stir up God’s power in the world – will lead us to see and walk towards those places in our world that are crying out for peace.  Pray that God will stir up God’s power in our hearts – to heal us where we are hurt – to lead us to reconciled relationships.  So that when we greet the light of Christ in a few days we find that our joy is, yet again, made complete.  Amen.

- the Rev. Arianne R. Weeks

Fading Flowers, Crumpled Wrapping Paper, and the Faithfulness of God

Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-8

All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

The beginning and ending of our passage from the prophet Isaiah are well known and beloved
passages of scripture. We tend to jump from the promise of comfort for God’s people and the promise that John the Baptist will prepare the way for Jesus, making straight a highway for God in the flesh, to the command to Isaiah to get himself up to a high mountain to proclaim God’s coming to God’s people. But we skip that middle bit, the bit about fading flowers and withering grass, since it’s the only part of this chapter that Handel didn’t include in his “Messiah.” On the surface, it’s an interruption, a bit of dreariness in the midst of a chapter filled with good news.

But to the people of Israel, 2 this was good news. Isaiah 40 begins the portion of this book of scripture known as “Second Isaiah.” The first thirty-nine chapters tell Israel why they have gone into exile, but this chapter marks the beginning of a declaration that the exile is drawing to a close. All people are grass, Second Isaiah says, and what he means is, “Your captors are grass, too.”  This seeming non-sequitur about the transitoriness of life is the word of comfort Second Isaiah is anointed to proclaim: Babylon the Great will fall, withering like grass, but God’s promises will endure.

Unlike the children of Israel, we’re not living in exile in a strange land. But I need to hear these words today. This can be such a stressful time of year, can’t it? There’s so much to do: gifts to buy, trees to decorate, cookies to bake, gifts to wrap, parties to attend, parties to host. I know that in Advent, the church invites me into a season of quiet waiting and simple preparation, but it can be hard for me to hear the still, small voice of God right now. It’s drowned out by Christmas carols on the radio and commercials on TV.

And those commercials. Have you noticed how loaded they can be? If you love your family, you will make them a perfect Christmas dinner. If you love your family, you will buy them this or that. If you love your family, you will drop everything to bake cookies.That’s before we even get to people like Kirk Cameron, who are shouting to everyone who will listen that the only way to “save” Christmas is for all of us, but especially mothers, to be cheerful and joyful all the time. And in the midst attempting to be perfectly spiritual and prayerful, like I think God wants me to be, I find my thoughts wandering and my mind worrying, “Will they like the presents I bought? Does the tree look perfect? Are all the corners of the wrapping paper crisp and perfect?”

At moments like this, I need to hear Isaiah’s words: The grass withers, the flowers fade, the wrapping paper will end up in the trash, and the tree on the curb. The prophet Isaiah’s words are a call to us to remain focused on what really matters: our trust in God’s promises to us, because God is faithful and will not disappoint. God will be faithful, even if I burn the ham. God will the faithful, even if the presents are a bust. God will be faithful, even if I do not meet my unrealistic expectations about how perfectly spiritual I am “supposed” to be during Advent.

This is the same message we hear from John the Baptist: The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me. In art, John is always depicted pointing away from himself, pointing toward Christ. John is another reminder that this season is not about us: it is about the faithfulness of God, revealed in Jesus Christ, the eternal, enduring Word of God, spoken to us as a promise of God’s love.

There’s a wonderful bit of spiritual wisdom that comes from Alcoholics Anonymous and other Twelve-Step Groups: “Stop shoulding all over yourself.” I repeat that to myself a lot, especially at this time of year. “Stop shoulding all over yourself.”

This is the message of the prophets that our collect bids us to heed: It is not about us. It was never about us, because we are like grass that fades. This is good news, even if it doesn’t immediately sound like it. This is good news, because it frees us from the terrible burden of trying to save ourselves, trying to be good enough.

This Advent, when there are so many clamoring voices telling you that it is all about you, that it all depends upon you, remember the words of the prophets. Stop shoulding all over yourself. It isn’t up to you to save Christmas. It isn’t up to me to save Christmas. Rest in the assurance of God’s love, revealed to us in Jesus,  revealed to us in water,  revealed to us in bread and wine.

Amen.

Advent: Wait For It!

Advent 1
1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Who has been to Disney World?  Did you know that buried and built deep under the ground of Cinderella’s castle is a bunker called “The Disney Operational Command Center”?  It is the “brains” of the park designed to address the single most challenging problem Disney exec’s believe a visitor has to contend with – waiting in line.

I haven’t seen pictures – but according to what I read – the bunker is filled with flat-screen TVs displaying live feeds of all the rides and their lines – with green, yellow and red outlines so the watchers can see which lines are heading towards trouble.

When they start flashing red – someone in the command center might alert an operator of the ride to launch more boats, or send out more cars so more people can get off the line and on the ride.   Or they may ask Goofy or Snow White to head over and entertain the people while they wait.  Disney wants to do anything they possibly can to keep you occupied and distracted.

Because as the VP of the park was quoted as saying – “all those waiting moments really add up.”  (NYTimes 12/28/10)

I wonder if he has any idea of the theological depth of that statement….for yes indeed, all our waiting moments really add up.

We’re in a waiting period right now – aren’t we?  Christmas is the big event at the end of the line – but I’d offer that we have a choice as to which line we wait on.  Let’s call the first line the “holiday train.”  This is the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Pumpkin Latte’s turned to Peppermint Mocha’s, door-busting deals at every store so you can decorate that house until it looks like the Southern Living catalog of Norman Rockwell Christmas perfection that we’re told is bound to make us happy!  On this line, people seem to wait anxiously; always fretting over all there is to do, surrounded by all the distractions and delusions that as long as they procure enough of the “stuff” out there, they will finally feel happy and complete in “here.”  It’s a Christmas all about holiday spirit, good cheer and being nice.  Which is not really anything to do with the in-breaking of God via the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Or, we can opt for the other line that we call Advent.  Advent is not intended to distract or entertain you.  Quite the opposite.  The waiting is where the focus is.  The waiting is the spiritual practice meant to prepare our hearts like we prepare the soil before spring planting.  We tend to what is going on in us.  We listen and question and think about where we are right now, with ourselves, with God.  It’s leaning into the waiting to help us focus and pay attention and get ready.

But – it’s hard!  Not gonna lie that kind of waiting requires intentionality and being entertained and distracted is just plain easier.  The one time in my life where I felt like I was able to live into the waiting was when it was sort of forced on me.  My daughter, Dorothea, was born on December 29th – and she was due Christmas eve.  So my Advent in 2004 was all about waiting!

Now of course before I got pregnant – I heard many times about how wonderful pregnancy is – lots of women say – I loved being pregnant.  Well not this woman!  My back hurt all the time – feet and ankles swollen – had terrible heartburn.  Sleeping?  It didn’t matter how many special pillows I bought, I never got comfortable.  And that December was the last month.  I was living in Queens in New York and working in Manhattan down in Tribeca.  So every day I took the train 45 minutes into the city – and in Queens it’s an elevated train – so there were all the stairs up to the station – all the stairs up to the platform – all the stairs up to the sidewalk once you got into Manhattan.  I remember one weekday coming home from work and I had walked the five blocks back to me street and I remember standing on the corner – my apartment was about ¾ down the block – and you know how they do in the movies when they show something far away and then zoom the camera somehow so the distance seems to triple?  Well I stood on that corner, stared down that block and that seemed to happen and I thought – I’m just going to sit down right here.  Surely someone or several someone’s will just come along eventually and carry me home.  Just didn’t think I could make it. Couldn’t wait any more!

But, of course I did.  And all of you in here – especially those of you with first- hand experience – know that no matter the hardships I wouldn’t trade it for the world, in fact I’d take double – because I knew what I was waiting for.  I was waiting to give birth to my daughter – waiting to meet a person that I had a part in creating.  Waiting to bring love into my life – into the world.  Waiting for the gift of God (Dorothea) that is beyond words – truly miraculous.

That feeling – hopeful expectation – is a gift of the faith-filled life and what Advent is all about. It is the waiting that Paul describes in his letter to his church in Corinth –  I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind….so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of God.

Hopeful expectation comes when we trust that God has already done something in us – God has already planted the seed – started us on a path.  The priest and writer Henri Nouwen said – “Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and you want to be present to it.”

That’s the hopeful expectation of Mary, of Joseph, the shepherds, the Magi, John the Baptist, all the people in scripture believe God has started something in them!

And, the thing is, as we wait for the revealing – God is waiting for us to reveal those seeds God has planted.  God is waiting for us to reveal the light in our hearts.  God is waiting for us to give birth to the child of God, God created us to be.

So for those of you who want to skip the holiday train ride, and hop on the Advent waiting line I offer this practice – each day, at any point in the day – simply look around and pay attention.  Be present fully to the moment with the conviction that something is happening and God is there.  Name for yourself what is the grace God has given you in speech and knowledge and being that is being birthed in you.

May all of us enter into Advent time, in the words of Isaiah, remembering that we are the clay and God is the potter, and all those waiting moments are the work of God’s hands.  The moments that create our very lives and don’t we want to pay attention to that!  Because in each and every one of them – God is doing something in us and breaking into our lives all the time.  Keep awake for God is faithful.  Amen.

We are not sheep or goats!

Last Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 25:31-46

If you’ve been at church at least one Sunday over the past few weeks perhaps you, like me, will be relieved to hear we are at the end of these challenging teachings of Jesus.  Today is the last Sunday of the church year and next Sunday we start anew.  Switching gospels and leaving Matthew behind for Mark as we prepare for the coming of Christ. 

Chapter 25 of Matthew’s gospel is surely the most challenging consecutive set of stories.  First there was the story of the wise and the foolish bridesmaids.  Some have enough oil for their lamps – others don’t.  And the ones who don’t get shut out of the wedding feast.

Then there was the well-off landowner who doled out the talents – asking each of his slaves to turn a profit with what they’ve been given.  And while some are able to do it – even more so then expected – for the poor guy who was too scared to take a risk – he gets thrown into the outer darkness where there is the infamous weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And now we’ve reached the summit – when the king separates the sheep from the goats.  And the poor goats now find themselves in the strange company of bewildered bridesmaids and incompetent investors.

So why do we end the year with these stories?  To prepare by cowering in fear?  Having us wonder – are we sheep, are we goats – when we know we don’t always do what is right?  Is it meant to scare us into action?  Get us to start counting up our good deeds in order to joyfully await the birth of Jesus and feel good about all our Christmas presents?

I think it’s important – critical really – to hear the line that comes right after this morning’s gospel.  The beginning of chapter 26 – When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”

Jesus is preparing for something too.  Time is running out.  No more time for miracles or teachings.  No more time for breaking bread with his followers.  The end is just too near.

Earlier this week the priests of this region met with our bishops.  This is something we do once a year.  Bishop Sutton assigns a book for us to read and we get together and discuss it.  This year we looked at a book on heresies.  You know, teachings about Jesus and God that the Christian church deemed unorthodox – not right, not valid.  Mostly they sprang up during the earliest centuries Christianity – before the institutional church had secured a position of dominance by being closely aligned with a governmental power (as Jesus has railed against, but that’s another sermon).

Most of the heresies have to do with the nature of Christ.  Was he really human? Really divine?  But some are about the nature of God. 

Marcion of Sinope in 144 thought Christianity had a major marketing problem – the God of the Old Testament.  Marcion was a Christian – a Roman he had been converted by the teachings of Paul – and when he read the Old Testament he thought – well that God is just too mean. 

Look at Jesus – he teaches about love, forgiveness.  He couldn’t believe Jesus could come from the same God of the Hebrew bible – where there was so much wrath.  And he thought that kept people from the faith. So he put together his own bible and formed his own community – claiming Jesus was not the Jewish Messiah but a spiritual entity sent by a God who had not had previous interactions with the world.  He set up an either/or concept.  Old Testament bad.  New Testament good.

And I think this heresy is alive and well. I hear people say it all the time.  It’s not too hard to do because there are some really challenging stories (like what we heard from Zephaniah last Sunday) that interpret destructive events as coming from the hand of God.  But the canon, Old or New, is not that clean and tidy.  Yes – the wrath of God, the day of the Lord that is darkness and fierce judgment is in the Old Testament – but as we heard this morning – you can find that in the New Testament just as well. 

And remember, the Old Testament stories cover a little over a thousand years of history – a thousand years of people trying to understand the workings of God through their experience.

The gospel stories – they cover about three.  Not really an apples to apples comparison is it?  But I get it.  It’s easier to make generalizations and lump books into clear cut categories – then it is to struggle with the messiness and hold unanswerable tensions.

But this morning we are forced to.  Because our gospel has the judgment and eternal damnation – while our reading from the Old Testament has the good shepherd feeding his sheep.  What would Marcion make of that?

He’d have a problem.  And I think the problem, comes from comparing scripture instead of taking it whole – the good, the bad and the ugly as the movie title goes.  If you spend all your time arguing scripture against itself – God said this, but Jesus said that, or vice versa – that’s an either/or, right/wrong game – that would probably result in an angry stalemate.  The wisdom of the church is that we have to take the whole thing – this entire canon of stories that are not neat and tidy. 

At the start of Matthew an angel tells Joseph – you will call him Emmanuel, God with us.  At the end of Matthew, Jesus stands on a mountain and says to his disciples, “Remember, I am with you always,” God with us – is the beginning and ending of the gospel’s message.  God with us informs everything – especially how we interpret God’s judgment.

When you are with someone who is thirsty how can you not give them a drink?  One time, I was serving at a neighborhood supper, a soup kitchen.  It was the summer and hot.  Some guests came down as we were setting up the tables.  As I sat with them, talked with them,  it finally dawned on me that I kept swigging from a bottle of Poland Spring while they patiently waited for me to say, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry – let me get some water for the table.”  When you’re with someone – you can’t help but see their need.  You don’t think “Oh, let me do something good now because I’m a Christian.”  You just do it. 

And I think that’s the point.  I am not a sheep – I am not a goat – I, just like you, am (according to scripture) a beloved child of God, created in God’s own image.  And when I see people, which isn’t all the time.  When I am really with people in relationship, that’s when I most naturally act out of compassion, unaware almost, like those sheep, that I’m doing anything of great significance.  What I hear God reminding me of this morning is to pay attention to that, cultivate that.  See the people around me, be with the people around me.  Not out of fear – but because I believe God is with me. 

And acting out of compassion, generosity, love – that is what enables others to believe that God is with them too.

This is why we sit down to eat with one another on a Sunday after worship.  To cultivate being with each other.  This is why we’re reading a book in Outreach called “Toxic Charity.”  Because it’s about how we might re-envision and renew our ministries by seeing if we are in relationship with people. Apparently that is how we see Christ in the least of these and are moved to acts of compassion. 

God’s judgment is defined in the words of our opening collect which hearken to the Good Shepherd in Ezekiel – it is God’s will to restore all things.  To feed all with justice – meaning, all have food, all have water, all have safe and fertile pasture to live, work and most especially, rest.

If God is with us – then God calls us to be with one another – especially with the least of these.  That is how we best prepare to celebrate God’s coming into this world to be with us.  That is how we might find ourselves surprised, just like those sheep, as to the ways in which God with us, moves us to be the Good Shepherd in our world.  Amen.

The Rev. Arianne R. Weeks