Good Tidings of Great Joy

By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Luke 2:(1-7)8-20
An audio version of this sermon is available here.

“Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”

We gather here tonight to hear again the old familiar story of the birth of Jesus in a stable in Bethlehem. We hear again of Mary and Joseph, the displaced couple, far from home, who had to stay in that stable because there was no room for them in the inn. We hear of the shepherds, staying out in the fields all night to look after their sheep, staying out working all night while the more prosperous, more comfortable people of Bethlehem were at home in their beds. And we hear about the angels, messengers from the Creator and Sustainer and Perfecter of all things, messengers who came to say to frightened and lonely people, “Do not be afraid: there is good news, there is great joy, there is a Savior for you and for everyone.”

We come here tonight to hear the Christmas message again — and perhaps this Christmas we are more ready, more willing, more eager to hear that message than on many Christmases past. This year, perhaps more than most, we are all really looking for some good news to celebrate.

Because for many of us it seems that we have had more than our share of bad news in the weeks and the months that we’ve been through. It isn’t just the lingering recession and the cloud of financial insecurity that seems to be hanging over the world, and over so many of us, and so many of the people we care about. It isn’t just the extreme polarization of opinions and positions that seems to characterize our public life these days, and the frustration a lot of us feel that our leaders care more about their political posturing than about coming to agreement on anything in order to get anything done. It isn’t just the feeling some have that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and that Wall Street is making a killing while Main Street has to struggle more and more. It isn’t just the steady tide of violence, organized and random, that we see over and over in our news media — student shootings and rogue states and sectarian violence and terrorist acts. It isn’t just the babble of overstimulated media and sensationalist news and the commercial overhyping of just about everything that makes our world seem a little crazier every day. It isn’t just the constant background of illness and failing health and sorrow and loss and death that so many of us have been living with, it seems, in these last few weeks and months. For many reasons, for many people, it seems as though there has been a lot of bad news lately. Maybe it even seems as though the good news of birth of Jesus can’t find a place to connect with this crazy, messy world we’ve come to know.

But consider for a moment the world that Jesus was born into, the world described in our Christmas Gospel stories. It was a world of vast inequalities in political and military power, where the ruling superpower of Rome insinuated its culture and its money and its language and its soldiers into all kinds of smaller and weaker peoples and nations. It was a world where those smaller and weaker nations often felt great resentment and resistance to the globalizing tendencies of Rome, and would sometimes respond with rebellions and insurrections and guerilla operations and surprise attacks of terror. The territory of Judea was notorious in Jesus’ time for its violent uprisings against Roman power. The world that Jesus was born into was a world of despotic and paranoid rulers, who often didn’t seem to hesitate to violate the lives of their people to further their own ambitions and agendas. Matthew’s Gospel records that Herod the Great ordered the extermination of the male children of a whole region in order to catch the one child whom prophecy said was the true heir to David’s throne. The world that Jesus was born into was a world of economic disparities, where a few amassed great wealth while many were kept in enforced poverty; it was a world of racial and ethnic hatreds, where Galileans and Judeans and Jews and Samaritans and Greeks and Romans and Scythians and barbarians all watched each other with suspicion; it was a world where you could be ordered to leave your home and go somewhere else to be counted for a census to raise the tax rates; it was a world where non-citizens could be tried by a secret military tribunal and summarily executed for crimes against the state; it was a world where terror and warfare and danger and death were everyday occurrences in everyday life

The world that Jesus was born into was not so very different from the world we’ve been living in these weeks and months and years. It wasn’t some ideal realm of peace and goodwill and the sound of angel song — but it was a world so broken and so hurting that it longed to hear the words: “Do not be afraid: there is good news, there is great joy, there is a Savior for you and for everyone.”

And that is the message that our world longs to hear tonight, too. That is the message that is proclaimed to us in this Christmas Gospel. That is the message that we are commissioned to proclaim to the entire world.

Because the good news of the birth of Christ is not just a memory of something that happened far away and long ago. The good news is that Christ is borne in us, and that we are reborn in Christ, here and now, in this life and in this world, in the midst of all the crazy messy busy scary realities that make up our day-to-day lives. The good news is that Jesus is our Savior, because in Jesus God has entered into our human life; in Jesus God has taken up the whole crazy messy busy scary business of being human and has given it a new horizon of meaning; in Jesus God has focused all the rays of divine love, the way a magnifying glass focuses light, so that the light of love can be kindled in our hearts too; in Jesus God has come to be one of us, so that in Jesus we might come to be one with God.

And that is good news, that is great joy, that is our salvation — because it means that our lives and our labors, our hopes and our dreams, our joys and our sorrows, our passions and our loves, are not limited, are not controlled, are not held down by all the bad news we’ve been living through. It means that for us, too, our lives can have a wider horizon of meaning than the horizon set by fear and anxiety and terror. It means that we can be good news, when in the Name of Jesus we feed the hungry, and house the homeless, and comfort the afflicted, and encourage the faint-hearted, and stand for justice, make the peace, and in all things point beyond ourselves to the Goodness at the heart of all reality — because that is what Jesus was born to do, and what we bear the Spirit of Jesus in us to do again today.

And that is what we celebrate here tonight. On this Christmas Eve 2011, it is our joy, it is our salvation, it is our mission, to hear and to proclaim again the words of the angel at the birth of Jesus: “Do not be afraid, for I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people: for you there is this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord, the Son of God, Jesus Christ.”

Amen.

A Mansion Prepared

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 and Luke 1: 26-38.
An audio version of this sermon is available here.

“We beseech thee, Almighty God,” we pray in our collect today, “to purify our consciences by thy daily visitation, that when thy Son Jesus Christ cometh he may find in us a mansion prepared for himself.”

What does it mean to prepare a mansion, to prepare a dwelling place, for God? That question runs all through our scripture readings for this Fourth Sunday of Advent, this Sunday almost on the cusp of Christmas Day.

David wanted to build a dwelling place for God, as we hear in our reading from 2 Samuel this morning. David wanted to build a splendid temple for God, something that would really show off David’s power and prestige as king. That was kind of standard operating procedure for Middle Eastern kings in David’s time: first you consolidated your territories, then you subdued your enemies, then you built yourself a magnificent palace, then you erected a temple to your god to impress on everyone just how important you were and how powerful you were and how divine authority was on your side to do whatever you wanted. When David was settled in his house, and had rest from all his enemies, and wanted to prove that he really was the king, the next thing to do was to build a temple for God to dwell in, to show everyone how much God favored him.

But God had different ideas about where to dwell. God sent the prophet Nathan to tell David that God didn’t actually need a house, that God was always free to move about among peoples and places, and God was not about to be pinned down to a temple of splendor as a sign of David’s divine favor. Instead of dwelling in a house made by hands, where God really wanted to dwell was in the house of David, in David’s dynasty, in the lineage of Davidic kings who would lead God’s people, and shepherd God’s people, and establish God’s people in righteousness and justice, who would be God’s instrument for bringing peace and wholeness and well-being to all people. The house, the dwelling place, the mansion God wanted was David’s heart, and the hearts of all those who would come after David. For David, preparing a dwelling place for God meant accepting the covenant God chose to make with him.

Preparing a dwelling place for God takes on an even deeper meaning in our Gospel reading today, in Luke’s account of the Annunciation to Mary. The angel Gabriel comes to a young girl in a small town in the backwater region of Galilee to tell her that she, she, will conceive and bear the heir to David’s throne, the one who will open the way to the kingdom of never-ending justice and peace, the one who will be God’s Son, God’s human dwelling place, in the world. Astonished and perplexed by this world-changing news, Mary asks a very prudent question — “How can this be?” — and the angel answers that she will be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, she herself, her very body, will be a dwelling place for divine presence, she herself will be the mansion where the holy child will grow and form and be prepared to come into the world. Mary’s simple answer, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word,” is a perfect example of human self-offering in response to God’s self-offering in love. For Mary, preparing a dwelling place for God meant trusting that nothing will be impossible with God, and therefore opening herself to the new life God has chosen to place in her.

Preparing a dwelling place by accepting the covenant. Preparing a dwelling place by self-offering for new life. According to our collect, preparing a dwelling place for God happens when God purifies our consciences. “Conscience” is a word that means more than we usually give it credit for. Conscience is more than that little voice that tells you when you’ve done something bad; the word “conscience” comes from roots that literally mean “knowing with”; so conscience in its root sense means a kind of knowledge that is intimate and intense and more meaningful than ordinary information. Conscience is more than objective external data about something; conscience is sharing in the truth of a thing, knowing something so well that it becomes a part of you and you become a part of it. For God to purify our consciences means that God cleans away all the things that get in the way of our knowing God so deeply and so inwardly and so well that God becomes a part of us and we become a part of God. For God to purify our consciences means that God prepares in us the knowledge of Christ, a dwelling place for Christ, a mansion in our deepest hearts where the life of Christ can be formed. Just as David knew God when God offered to make him a house, just as Mary knew God when God offered to make her the mother of his Son, so we know God when God offers to us a purified conscience, an intimate knowing, to be the dwelling place of Christ in us.

And that happens, our collect tells us, by God’s “daily visitation.” The purified conscience is not something we must accomplish on our own before God will deign to come to us, but it is something that God accomplishes with us precisely by coming to us. The daily time we spend in prayer and meditation and contemplation with God is the very way God forms in us the pure conscience, the inward knowing, the heart’s mansion where Christ can live.

And that’s a timely reminder for us today. Christmas is a week away — and for a lot of us that means things are going to get busier and busier with each passing day. There will be visits, and family, and travel, and parties before Christmas, and parties after Christmas, and big dinners, and shopping, and presents, and before you know it will be New Year’s Eve, and then where will the year have gone? It will be easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of it all in the next few days, and while that can be joyous it can also be exhausting, and in some ways it can distract us from the truth of Christ born into the world that is at the heart of it all. Daily prayer, daily visitation with God, will purify our conscience, it will clarify our knowing, it will deepen our sharing with Christ alive in us — so that even in a busy time of year we may be more and more the embodiment of Christ’s hands to serve, and Christ’s feet to go, and Christ’s mouth to speak Good News, and Christ’s heart to love all those who need love most. It was to embody all those things that Jesus was formed in Mary’s womb and born in Bethlehem; it is to embody all those things in us that Jesus forms a mansion in our hearts today.

So I invite you this week, as everything ramps up for The Big Event: Take time each day to pray, spend time each day with God’s visitation, let God’s grace purify your inward knowing and form in you a place for Christ to dwell. And your Christmas celebration will be not just for Jesus’ birth, but for your own rebirth in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Let There Be Light

John 1: 6-8, 19-28

Jim Gilman

Introduction

            So, “there was a man sent from God whose name was John,” says our gospel lesson. “He came as a witness to testify to the light…. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.”  Perhaps the most important comment of this entire Gospel passage is when it says:  John himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light; he came to be a witness to the light. In fact, during the time of John & Jesus there were some prophets claiming to be the light; Jesus made such a claim. But John did not; he knew who he was and who he was to be.

            Check out the stained glass windows this morning. What’s your favorite one? Mine is….. Without the sun shining light through them, the windows can be somewhat dull and dim looking; not what they could and should be. They are menat to have light shining through them. When it does, they are brilliant, spectacular.

That’s pretty much the sermon today: that we should like John, let the light of the Lord shine through us and not on us. We are meant to be like stained glass windows, transparent, letting the light of the Lord shine through us. If we don’t then we are rather dull and dim Christians. John’s greatness is that he did not mistake himself for the light, as some do; rather, he was transparent to the light; he was willing to let the light of God shine through him--through his words, voice, actions, and life. His message of repentance and forgiveness was like light bursting through a stained glass window, brilliant and spectacular.

Transparent

            Question: How do we k now when we are transparent and not opaque to God’s light?How do we know when the light of the Lord shines through us and not on us? Or, as our lesson from Isaiah says it, how do we know when the spirit of the Lord is upon us??

            Isaiah’s answer is straightforward: The spirit of the Lord is upon us, the light of the Lord shines through us, when we: bring good news to the poor, bind up the broken hearted, proclaim liberty to the captive, release to the prisoner; when we proclaim the year of the Lord’s facor and the day of God’s vengeance; when we comfort those who more. This is how we know that the spirit and l;ight of the Lord shines through us, when by God’s grace we are empowered to do these things. In fact, you may know that when Jesus began his ministry he claimed these words of Isaiah as his own: as if to say this is my spirit, this is my good news; as if to say, this is my light that is to shine through you as if through stained glass. When we are transparent, in other words, we are empowered to do all these things that Isaiah and Jesus mention; when we are transparent we practice what we preach; we are willing to sacrifice something of ourselves for the welfare of others.

Opaque

            How is it, then, that we Christians often are opaque instead of transparent? How and why is it that sometimes we absorb light instead of transmitting it to others?

            Preparing this sermon compelled me to self-examination; to consider the ways in which I tend to absorb the light of Christ instead of transmitting it? All of the ways I thought of condensed into a single word: EXCUSES! What is my, what is your excuse for being opaque?

            *too busy, or afraind of being too busy;

            *already overcommitted; To what??

            *don’t know what my gifts are;

            *don’t know where my gifts fit in at Trinity;

            *Too little energy; too tired all the time; Too lazy??

            *Failure of nerve, afraid of what transparency will demand of me?

Excuses are light black holes! The light of Christ may enter our hearts, but excuses keep it from shining through us to the benefit of others. For example, think of the ways you receive the light of Christ here at Trinity: worship, music, Sunday school, youth events, bible studies, holy communion, social events. How many of us absorb the light of these good things, but fail to pass that light on; fail to transmit it to others?

Let Light Shine

            The good news Isaiah talks about is the same as the good news that John testifies to. The light that shone through John was the gospel of repentance and forgiveness and baptism.. Ask yourself, How can I be transparent? How can I testify to the light of Christ? How can let the light of Christ shine through my life this week?

            The opportunities are endless, really. Isaiah says we are to:

1.      Bring good news to the oppressed: There are plenty of opportunities for justice, for bringing good news to the oppressed here in the Valley;

*there are many organizations that work to protect the rights and liberties of the vulnerable:

*the Augusta Center for Peace and Justice, for example; NAACP, New Directions, and many other organizations.           

*We can help those who are bullied at school, those who are excluded, kids who are abused or neglected; elderly who are abused or neglected;

*those who suffer domestic abuse and violence; The poor, needy; those without decent housing;

*those who have no power or voice to claim their rights.

For all of these the light of Christ is justice and freedom.

2.      Bind up the heartbroken: There are sooo many people in our community who are heartbroken, who need healing and comfort:

*there are those who grieve the death of a loved one need comfort; those who are divorcing, who suffer illnesses; those who are ostracized;

*all who are lonely; who have no one special to be with, no one who takes the time and energy to pay attention to them, to make them feel worth the air they breathe; those who eat alone at work or feel isolated and abandoned in their homes at night, with no one to call them to say they care.

For them the light of Christ is comfort and care and friendship.

3.      Proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners:

*There are of course opportunities to work for the release of political prisoners and those falsely imprisoned in our own criminal justice system.

*But there is another prison in which many are trapped: the prison of addiction to alcohol, prescription drugs, to food and pornography and TV and sports;

*there are those imprisoned in the solitude of their own egos, who are so imprisoned by their own self- interests that they cannot meet the needs of those in their own household.

*There are those who are trapped by feelings of guilt, that a word of forgiveness or mercy would heal;

For them the light of Christ is liberty and freedom.

Conclusion

To be transparent like John, to be light to those in need is, according to Isaiah, like giving *a garland instead of ashes; *the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.” Indeed, those who are transparent to the light will be called “Oaks of Righteousness, the planting of the Lord.” It is light and good news that Isaiah says will “build up the ancient ruins,” “raise up the former devastations,” and “repair the ruined cities” of our lives. 

            This is John’s message to us. Like John we are not the light but are to be transparent to the the light, so that all might believe; so that the way of the Lord is made straight.                                                                                                                

God Prepares a Way

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Isaiah 40:1-11

An audio version of this sermon is available here.

“Prepare the way of the Lord!” That imperative, that command, rings through all our scripture readings for today, this Second Sunday of Advent. We Christians are perhaps most familiar with that imperative as proclaimed by John the Baptist, preparing the way for the public ministry of Jesus. But the image of a Way prepared for God is far older and far broader than just John the Baptist — and when we look closely at some of those other versions of the image, what we see is not just how we prepare a way for God, but how God prepares a way for us, how God is at work in the world to open for us the way to become more alive, more compassionate, more just, more peaceable, more like the fully realized people God gives us the potential to be. Advent is our season for witnessing how God prepares the way for our fulfillment, both now in this mortal life, and in the greater life that is yet to come.

How God prepares the way for us is the theme of our scripture readings today. And what these readings tell us is that the Way God prepares is not always easy, it’s not always gentle and quiet and free of risk; but God’s way is trustworthy, and God’s way is sure, and God’s way will lead to a reality where righteousness is at home.

That message really comes through in our First Testament lesson today, this passage from the 40^th chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah Chapter 40 is the point at which the whole book of Isaiah turns, it shifts its direction suddenly from being a dire warning to the people that they must turn from their wickedness and follow God before God’s punishment falls upon them, and suddenly becomes a book of comfort, a series of prophecies that promise God’s consolation for the people, God’s restoration of the people. God promises to build a Way, a highway in the desert, that will bring the Jewish people back from their exile in Babylon to their home in Jerusalem, a Way that will bring all people back from their estrangement from God to their home in God’s love. A voice cries out to the heavenly powers: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” And on that divinely built highway, God himself “will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.”

The imagery of God’s Way in the desert is very familiar to us — perhaps even too familiar. It is so familiar to us that I think sometimes we miss the disturbing, the shocking dimension in these words. “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low,” the prophet says, “the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.” Think for a moment about what those words really mean, not just the beauty they lend to Handel’s Messiah, but the concrete scene they describe: mountains shaking to their very roots, falling down to become flat ground; valleys heaving up in monstrous earthquakes to become level with the plain. It’s a pretty frightening set of images. We had a small earthquake here in Virginia last summer — you can still see the cracks it left in the patio behind the rectory — and that little temblor was scary enough. Imagine if you looked up one day and saw the Blue Ridge mountains shaking, sliding, tumbling down to become level ground; imagine if our whole Shenandoah Valley were suddenly heaved up to make an even plain; imagine if Highway 250, winding its way through valley and ridgetop, were suddenly made straight and even and level and unimpeded. I’d be pretty scared if I saw all that happening. Isaiah describes a fearsome upheaval in the natural order of things, a terrifying disruption in the way-things-are, when God prepares a Way to bring his people home.

And even if we take the images strictly metaphorically, they still describe a terrible disruption in the lives of the people the prophet is addressing: many of the Jews of Second Isaiah’s time had grown comfortable in Babylon: some had risen to high positions in the Babylonian government, many had grown wealthy in Babylonian commerce. Going back to Judea to rebuild a ruined Jerusalem would have been a pretty scary prospect to many of them, as scary as watching mountains tumble and valleys rise.

But the meaning of these images, Isaiah says, is not fear or terror; the meaning is comfort, the meaning is consolation, the meaning is strengthening the people to put their trust in God and do the work God has given them to do. The prophet’s vision is that upheavals and disruptions and dislocations in our comfortable and settled lives can be God’s very way of preparing the path that will lead us to greater life. And the prophet’s message is that if we will trust in God’s way, if we will put our feet on God’s highway in the wilderness, then we too can be gathered into a City of Peace, where the glory of God shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together. The Way that God prepares is not always easy, but the Way of God will lead us to larger life.

And that is how we can come to know God’s Way with us, too. We may not be looking for a return from exile, as Isaiah’s people were; but we do know what it is like to live in a world of upheaval, we do know what it is like to experience disruptions and dislocations in our lives — and we too are called to let God shake us out of our comfortable, complacent routines and lead us on the highway through the desert to a larger way of life.

A friendship is damaged by betrayal or anger; but that dislocation also opens the opportunity for reconciliation, and a deeper commitment, and a friendship that is stronger in the long run.

A family is disrupted by alcoholism or addiction; but the pain of intervening in addictive behaviors becomes the way into recovery, the way to greater freedom and more genuine love for everyone in the family system.

An individual comes to a time of illness or loss or sadness or grief, when a whole entire life seems turned upside down; but that dislocation and disruption become the way of discovering a new sense of self, a new way of life, a new height of faith, a new depth of love.

A church finds its customs and habits challenged by changing patterns of participation, and shifting expectations of membership, and an increasing percentage of the general population who say that church and religion don’t really mean much of anything to them anyway; but facing those challenges opens a way for that church to move beyond “We’ve always done it that way,” and to become more intentional about the practices of its faith, and the centrality of prayer, and its mission to be Jesus for the world.

We know what it is like to live in a world of upheaval, to live lives touched by disruption and dislocation — so to us as well these scriptures speak, and promise that in the wilderness God prepares a Way, in the deserts and wastes and scary places of our lives, God makes the pathway straight; when everything around us seems to be dissolving and withering away, God is preparing the new possibility that will bring us into a larger life. For us, too, the message is that we may put our trust in God and do the work God gives us to do, we may strive to live lives of holiness and godliness now, looking ahead to when the fullness of grace will be revealed. For us, too, the message is “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God — because in your wilderness, too, the Way of the Lord is being prepared.” And that is the spirit of Advent we are invited to receive and embrace and live this day.

Keep awake and sleep well

Sermon: Keep awake and sleep well

Mark 13:24-37, 1 Advent

The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen

Trinity Church, Staunton, VA

November 27, 2011


An audio version of this sermon is available here. 

Let’s go back a couple of thousand years to Mark, the writer of this Gospel, writing his account about Jesus. In today’s reading Mark paints a very strange picture of the second coming of Christ. In this passage, sometimes referred to as the “little apocalypse,” as opposed to the “big apocalypse” in Revelation, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from the heaven. Taken in its proper context this image is not to be read literally but metaphorically. Marcus Borg, well-known biblical scholar, says that “metaphorical meaning of language is its more than literal, more than factual meaning.”¹ Here the meaning behind these cosmic images is the end of the world as we know it (recalling the famous R.E.M. song from the 1980’s).

In Mark’s gospel Jesus is clear on this - that the end of the established world will come; what Jesus is also clear about is that no one except the Father knows when this will happen. And three times in this short passage the listener is exhorted to “keep awake” or “keep alert” during the time between Jesus’s departure and his return. In our Eucharistic liturgy we proclaim that Christ has died, Christ is risen and Christ will come again. We are living in that in between time. And while we wait we are to keep awake. Are we never to sleep? For what are we keeping awake? Again, the meaning behind Jesus’ admonition is to pay attention to God in our midst and to do the things that allow us to be present to God- to believe, to pray, to put our trust in the Word that will not pass away even though heaven and earth will pass away, and to do the work that God calls us to, the work of justice, the work of forgiveness, the work of love.

Now let’s go back just a couple of days. It is Wednesday afternoon, and I have just received a Caringbridge update from my good friend, whose husband has a debilitating, progressive disease. Caringbridge is a web site available to those who are experiencing an illness and their friends so that they can connect easily with current information. Today they have just gone back to the E.R. My friend is exhausted. They have been to the Emergency Room and spent the night in the hospital too many times to count in the past 12 months. Ups and downs; lows and highs. Good news and then difficult news and then o.k. news, but their underlying message in their Caringbridge post is always the same, that God is present and at work in their lives. Sandi and Bob have tremendous faith in God, and they are instruments of God’s healing grace, even from the hospital bed; they have actually been directly involved in healing ministry for decades. And now they are very tired, and one of them is very, very sick. Focused on this passage in Mark where Jesus is calling his followers to “keep awake,” one must wonder what in the world God is saying to these two people. They both need sleep; they need rest. What would this gospel message be for them?

In their updates over the months Sandi and Bob have been the bearers of the gospel message throughout: They pray for others and themselves, they ask for prayers, and they believe that God answers prayer. They engage the hospital staff and talk about Jesus and somehow they constantly encounter folks in their daily experience who bring Jesus’ healing love to them. They laugh and joke for theirs is a very joyful faith and they attract others’ joy. They also allow themselves to cry; the transplant Bob needs does not seem to be imminent and times are often challenging, yet always they are with hope. For both Sandi and Bob know that whether they live or whether they die they belong to God, that the love of Jesus is ever present. They are clearly awake to God’s presence, clearly awake to their call, clearly awake spreading the love of Christ, clearly awake as God’s healing instruments even as patient in the ER. They need rest and sleep tonight. “Guide us waking O Lord and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ and asleep we may rest in peace.” (Compline, BCP, p.135)

This first Sunday in Advent we are called to watch for the coming of Christ. One of our kneeler cushions here at the altar rail reminds us, “Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.” The presence of the Lord IS in this place. Can we be awake to God’s presence? We are at the beginning of a very potentially loud and busy season, which in and of itself is not a bad thing, yet sometimes we become more awake to the divine when we slow down, stop talking so much and turn down the ambient noise. When we are not running so fast past our neighbor we might actually see the tears running down her cheeks and offer her an ear or a shoulder. When we slow down we might actually feel God’s nudge to forgive the friend who offended us last summer. When we are quiet with God we might let that still, small voice of truth and love penetrate our heart and mind that frees us up to do what makes us whole. When we have spent quiet time with God and allow that peace that passes all understanding to settle within us, we can take that peace to the noisy department store where we shop, take that peace to the Christmas party where we might not be feeling outwardly all that confident, we can take that peace to the family gathering and share God’s love.

Later today at the end of a busy weekend for many, here at Trinity we will have an Advent Silent Retreat and I invite you all to come. I invite you to bring your children who may be ready to be still and silent with God. Beginning at 5:00p.m. and ending at 8, every half hour we will have a person do a 2-5 minute reading or reflection followed by silence. Healing prayer will also be offered from 7:30 to 8:00p.m. You can come for 15 minutes or for the entire three hours. This retreat is intended as a window of quiet and stillness with God, an occasion to consider that “Surely the Lord is in this place” and an opportunity to awaken the spirit to the still, small voice of the divine. If you cannot attend this retreat, I invite you to make your own retreat, even if it is one minute long every day during Advent at home. It can be a time just to devote yourself to the presence of God, that the deep peace and stillness that God offers may be taken with you wherever you go, and that you may be awake to God and his purposes in you even in and especially in the busyness of life. At the noisiest of parties, in the deepest places of distress and pain, at moments of greatest stress, may you be awake to God’s presence and awake to his love. “Guide us waking O Lord and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ and asleep we may rest in peace.” (Compline, BCP, p.135)

Amen.

1 The Gospel of Mark, by Marcus J. Borg, p.8

Free the Waters!

Sermon: “Free the Waters!”
Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 2011
Deut. 8:7-18
The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen
Trinity Church, Staunton, VA


“The Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters.”


In today’s reading from Deuteronomy, the Israelites, God’s covenant people, have been in the wilderness for quite a while. This time of wandering has been a time of formation, formation as the people of God. Times have been fraught with difficulty and yet God has provided for them. At times, they have been tested, they’ve been thirsty, hungry, frustrated, angry, and faithless, and yet, through it all God has not forgotten them and has given them what they needed. Now God tells them this time of wandering in the desert is about to end; life is about to change.


God’s aim is to give them a good land, a land filled with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters. The Israelites will be entering a new place soon, a place of abundance, a place with sustenance, “a land of wheat and barley, of vines and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where (they) may eat bread without scarcity, where (they) will lack nothing.”


Today we celebrate Thanksgiving Day- a day of feasting, food, family, and friends, a day when we give thanks for what God has given us. To say the word “thanksgiving” brings up for many of us images of cornucopias of fruit and vegetables, big, fat turkeys with stuffing and gravy, cranberries and apple pie. And today we consider God’s role in the feast that is seen and unseen, God’s role in the abundance, God’s role in the tryptophan induced nap some of will concede to later this afternoon. The lush images that are presented in our reading – flowing water, fig trees, olive trees, wheat and barley, as well as lush images on our altar today and perhaps on our dining room tables are beautiful and inviting and point to a deeper reality of the abundance God is eager to give us if we are only willing to receive his gifts.


Early on in our marriage, my husband Steve and I visited Harper’s Ferry, WV, and waded in the Shenandoah River. There were lots of rocks in the river and lots of places in the river where twigs, leaves and logs had jammed up the flow of the water. I noticed after a while Steve unjamming places, removing those sticks and bunched up leaves, letting the water flow freely, and then he would happily move from one jam to the next having a great time. After a while I asked, “What are you doing?” He yelled, “Free the waters! Free the waters!” Decades later we still laugh when one of us unjams a spot in a stream or a river, yelling out, “Free the waters!”


I wonder if in a sense that is what God’s abundance and our response to it is all about: freeing the waters, freeing up that which blocks our receiving God’s grace, unclogging that which keeps us from the flowing outpouring of God’s love, that which attemps to keep God at bay. If God is bringing us into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters, how do we enter that land successfully? What keeps us from fully receiving God’s ever-flowing love?


If our blockage is

resentment or anger, we can draw on the freeing power of forgiveness.

If our blockage is
the need to control, we can draw on the freeing power of surrender.
If our blockage is
guilt, we can draw on the freeing power of making things right and just, as much

as it depends on us.

If our blockage is

our own unworthiness we draw on the freeing power of God’s Word: we and all

others are worthy of God’s love

If our blockage is pride
we can draw on the freeing power of humility.
If our blockage is

self-absorption, we can draw on the freeing power of doing for others.

If our blockage is

hatred, or irritation or judging others, we can draw on the freeing power of love.

If we spend time with any ourselves or any other people today, we will have ample opportunity to practice this drawing on God’s abundance.


So as we feast today, as we consider the visible, tangible abundance before us, can we also consider the depths of God’s abundance that are not always so visible? Can we ask God to show us what it is that will help us allow his ever-flowing love full access to our minds, our hearts, our souls?


Poet Mary Oliver’s words come to mind, “Listen, are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?” Inhale all the way! And exhale all the way, too. God wants us to live- fully! Abundantly! And God offers us all that we need to make that possible. We just need to tap into God’s power. We just need to let God free the waters!


Amen.

Facing Death, The Rev. John D. Lane

“FACING DEATH”

Last Sunday after Pentecost                 

Matthew 25:40

John D. Lane 

“And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

Somerset Maugham tells the following story, quoted by John O’Hara in his novel Appointment in Samarra:

DEATH SPEAKS: There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

It has been a difficult year around here. Many really good people have died or are seriously ill, all of them models of Christian life. I fear we may not see their like again.

I went through a difficult period myself for several months in the middle of the year. The Reader’s Digest version is that I had a lymph node removed, and was told I had non-Hodgkin’s follicular lymphoma, stage one. There was no other sign of the cancer in my body, but I was advised to have radiation therapy which took place this summer. At the end of the treatment, the radiation oncologist told me that she didn’t think it was ever coming back. I hope.

I had a month in the late spring between the first pathology report (cancer) and learning that I was probably going to be okay. It was a period of angst, but also of deep reflection. We went to the West Coast during this time and spent several days on trains. I can tell you that lying in an upper Pullman berth in the middle of the night is a way to think about profound questions without being interrupted by sleep. In a strange way, I’m glad I had this time to ponder. “You have cancer” or had “a stroke” or “heart attack” are phrases that are very scary.

After I got over the initial shock, the first question I asked myself is, How do I want to spend the rest of my life–especially if it is going to be only a short time? As Samuel Johnson put it, “Knowing you have a date with the hangman in the morning tends to focus your attention.” What does God want me to do with the rest of my life? What is my final vocation?

Today’s gospel is Matthew’s account of Jesus’ teaching on the Last Judgment at the end of time. Jesus tells his followers what will happen when the world ends, how God will separate the righteous from the unrighteous, the sheep from the goats, the saved from the damned. It is the proof text for focusing on the needs of others as the heart of Christian living. Do this and you will live. A clear message about what God expects of us.

But three chapters later, Matthew ends his gospel with this different take:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt 28:18-20)

So maybe the model Christian life focuses instead on Evangelism, a frightening concept for many Episcopalians. Talk about my faith? With strangers? With acquaintances? With close friends? I don’t think I’m ready for that! Next answer, please!

Paul’s Letter to the Romans persuaded Luther to turn the Church upside down and begin the Protestant Reformation, telling us that Faith alone matters to our Salvation:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2)

As long as you truly believe, then everything’s going to be okay– if of course we’re ready to believe Saint Paul, who  writes beautifully in another place:

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. (Gal. 6:22-25)

Not a bad way to live. Buddhists would buy it, too. Then, there is the Great Commandment: “Love the Lord with all your heart, body, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Not a bad standard, as is the Golden Rule, “Do unto others ...,” a standard stated by every world religion.

Questions are generally more important than answers. How do I prepare myself to die is one of the most important.

Since a death sentence is a stark reminder that our days on earth are numbered, it’s a good time to try to distinguish between what matters and what doesn’t–or doesn’t so much. I love to travel. Bizzy and I got back recently from 3 weeks in Southeast Asia, half a world away. We are still jet-lagged, explaining why she–and I–are in danger of falling asleep during this sermon. Looking at a short life-expectancy, I decided that I probably wouldn’t travel, but want to stay around and be available to family and friends.

I thought a lot about our son Andrew who died of muscular dystrophy 4 years ago. He lived for years knowing that he would die young, but he definitely took advantage of the time he had. I can’t imagine what it was like for him. I thought of my parents and my older sister, all of whom have gone before me.

When the end comes, today’s gospel tells us, God will judge us. By what standards? What do you believe is important? What is trivial? What do you believe God wants from you? These are questions we shouldn’t resist grappling with. The Bible has answers, many answers. We never know when our own appointment with death will come:

The merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw [Death] standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threating getsture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

Follow Christ

By Graham Tate

This sermon is based on Matthew 25:14-30
An audio version of this sermon is available here.

Open my lips O Lord and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.  AMEN.

Today’s Gospel reading comes from the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew in which there are several parables back to back.  Jesus is preaching these parables right before the Passion begins and each one has a palpable sense of urgency.  Just last week we heard the parable of the ten virgins with their lamps and oil waiting for the coming of the bridegroom, representing the waiting for the coming of Christ.  There is an eschatological theme running through these parables and the reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians.

Today we hear of a rich man who goes on a journey.  Before he departs, he leaves behind some of his riches, which as we know are in the form of talents.  To each servant he gives a specific amount of talents.  Each servant is entrusted with a great amount of money and each in turn makes his own choices on what to do upon receiving the talents.  As we heard, two servants go out immediately and multiply them.  One servant, however, decides to bury the talent that is given to him because, as he says, he fears the master.

What is it that separates the first two servants with the third one who simply buries his talent?  The first two do not fear.  They recognize that they have an opportunity, through the talents, to do something, to try and make the most of what is given to them.  The separation between the servants rests ultimately in trust.  While the third servant fears the master, the first two very clearly trust him and do not fear.

There was a great Christian in Germany in the first half of the 20th century by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Bonhoeffer was a man of the modern era who really embodied what it meant to trust in the will of God.  He also lived with an understanding of the urgency of the Christian life.

He was a young pastor who was very much the symbol of German resistance to Hitler and the Nazi power.  At a time when the Nazi state was at its height both in power and popularity, the outspoken Bonhoeffer was standing firm against the state’s overtaking of the German Protestant Church.  Understanding the risk of imprisonment and even death, Dietrich Bonhoeffer trusted in God.

He decided to found a seminary, even though it was illegal at the time.  The seminarians were interested in pursuing the ministry in the Confessing Church.  He modeled it on a sort of monastic lifestyle.  He and the seminarians would wake in the morning and the very first thing that they would do is Morning Prayer.  In fact, he wouldn’t allow the students to talk to each other before the service because he wanted the first utterances of the day to be toward God. During this time Bonhoeffer wrote Nachfolge which translates to “following”, we know it by the name of The Cost of Discipleship.  This book is all about just that, what it means to follow Christ.  There is no mapped out program that Jesus lays out for us.  No, instead we are called to trust in God’s will and follow. It is about relationship with Christ and following him.  It is about trust and risk.

Eventually Bonhoeffer was imprisoned at the hands of the Gestapo.  Prison is a place of despair and hopelessness.  Remarkably, however, it is while Bonhoeffer was in prison that his trust in the will of God intensified.  Throughout Bonhoeffer’s life, he lived with a great sense of urgency.  He witnessed a very real need for urgent living in the midst of Germany’s darkest times.  

Bonhoeffer understood that faith can only be faith if it is actively lived out.  If we hear the words of the Gospel today, we hear Christ saying, “have trust, follow me”.  As Bonhoeffer and the first two servants in the parable did, we have to live with urgency; that is, we must live each day for Christ alone.  Hoarding the talents or burying the talents is no life at all.  Bonhoeffer showed us that faith manifests itself through our actions as long as we listen and trust.

How do we hoard or bury the talents?  Do we bury the talents when we rely on complacency and safe comfort?  Do we bury the talents when we fear the unknown of the future?  Do we bury the talents when we worry about others’ opinions of us?  Do we bury the talents when we go a full day without a conscious intentional moment with the Lord?  When the third servant buried the talent, he was sure that that was enough.  He wasn’t willing to go any farther than that.  Do we bury the talent when we hear the will of God but only answer as far as we are willing to go?  Jesus is calling us to discipleship.  Discipleship demands that we trust in Christ and follow him, not on our own terms but rather to the cross and death.  Only then can we have true life.

Bonhoeffer understood the call to, “take up your cross and follow me”.  It must be understood that in this act of following, this discipleship, we have to surrender our selves and our wills to Christ.  Through this surrender the talents will be multiplied.  The talents in this parable are not the objects of focus; rather they are the fruits of the actions of the servants.  Just as a good tree will bear good fruit, trusting in our Lord’s will and following and living for him will yield a multiplying of the talents.

Eventually, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was shipped to a concentration camp with other enemies of the state and died a martyr just before the Allies reached the camp.  He showed us through his actions how to truly follow Christ and carry the cross.  The Way of the cross, as we know, is narrow and includes suffering, but leads ultimately to true life in Christ.  The early Christians called themselves, Followers of The Way.

Have the courage and trust to follow Christ.

AMEN.

God's Grown Children

By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on 1 John 3:1-3
An audio version of the sermon is available here.



“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” 


I just love that sentence from our All Saints Sunday reading today from the First Letter of John. To me, that sentence speaks to the central mystery of sainthood in the Christian understanding. And it says to me that saints are people who are blessed by God to be works in progress. Saints are God’s children: children by virtue of adoption in baptism; children by virtue of being created in the image and likeness of God; children because they have a kind of family resemblance to God, because they show forth in their lives the creativity and justice and peace and love that are defining traits of God. Saints are God’s children now. But saints are also called to become something more, something they are yet to be but has not yet been fully revealed. Children, after all, do grow up; children take the potentials and possibilities passed on to them by their parents and grow them into something new; or as someone put it to me recently, it is precisely because we are children of God we should also become adults of God. Saints are people who are becoming adults of God, growing up into God, becoming mature in faith, developing in wisdom, acting in justice, deepening and broadening and intensifying their family resemblance to God. And that's the kind of saints we are called to be. We are saints when we know that we are blessed by God, and we are loved by God, and we are God’s children now. We are also saints when we begin to reveal what we will be, when we step up to be works in progress, when we commit ourselves to growing into adults of God. We grow into our sainthood, by God's grace,  when we consciously and intentionally practice the family resemblance God has given us.


And we do that, we reveal what we will be, we grow into our sainthood, we become adults of God in the practice of generosity. Gracious, generous, unconditional giving is at the heart of who God is. The whole creation springs forth from God’s generous gift of existence — if it weren’t for God’s generosity, none of us would be here in the first place — and God’s generosity sustains all the interactions, all the givings and receivings, that weave our lives. When we act out of generosity, when we give of our work and wisdom and wealth just for the sheer goodness of it, then we are acting like God, then we are showing forth that family resemblance to God that makes us God’s children; when we grow in generosity, giving ever more graciously, that is what makes us God’s adults. Today we are blessing on the altar the pledges we’ve made for the financial support of this parish in the year to come. Making the commitment to give, and fulfilling that commitment by actually giving, are concrete and tangible acts of generosity that show our family resemblance to God. Church giving, of course, isn’t the only generosity we practice — we all have more opportunities to be generous than we can count — but the continuity of church giving, the regular, disciplined, intentional giving of fulfilling a church pledge is a kind of teaching device for overall generosity, it schools us and trains us in being generous, and it empowers our collective generosity on a scale far greater than any of us could do on our own. Blessing these pledges today is an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual generosity, it is a piece of the practice by which we grow in our sainthood. It’s part of what we celebrate this All Saints Sunday.


We reveal what we will be, we grow into our sainthood, we become adults of God in the practice of prayer. And that’s not just our prayers in church, but our prayers in life, our praying every day, every hour, every moment; it’s not just the prayers we say with our voices, but the prayer of the heart, the prayer of our silence, the prayer of our spirit that goes too deep for words. At the most fundamental level, prayer is not just the words we say to God, but the practice of opening our hearts to God, the disposition of our spirits to be ready and willing and eager to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. Prayer is our primary channel for being aware of our relationship with God — and being aware of that relationship is central to growing in that relationship — so the regular, disciplined practice of prayer is an essential part of how we grow closer to God, how we grow up into God. Someone said once that the very most basic prayer is simply saying “Yes” to God; in times of joy, in times of trouble, in times of sharing, in times of solitude, in times of deep assurance, and in times when it seems like God is a million miles away, in all times and in all places, simply saying “Yes” to God is the most basic, most important prayer. And “Amen” is an English version of a Hebrew word that essentially means Yes to God — so “Amen” may in fact be our most important prayer. Practicing prayer, with a genuine heartfelt Amen, is how we let God dwell in us more and more, making us more and more like God. It is a piece of the practice by which we grow in our sainthood. It’s part of what we celebrate this All Saints Sunday.


We reveal what we will be, we grow into our sainthood, we become adults of God in the practice of compassion. To rejoice with those who rejoice, to weep with those who weep, to have a heart that is open enough to receive into yourself what someone else is going through, and by sharing it to transform it — that is the compassion that comes from God. Out of sheer compassion, God shared our human life in Jesus, shared it to the point of dying a very human death on the cross — and by sharing it transformed it into Resurrection and the promise of everlasting life. And that’s part of our Christian life, part of our life as saints, although often on a much smaller scale. Years ago I visited a widow, who was deeply grieving the death of her husband; and I listened as she told me some stories and shared some memories and told me how much she missed him and how sad she was to be without him; and I didn’t try to cheer her up, I didn’t try to take her sadness away, but I felt sad that she was sad, and we shared that sadness together, and we sat in silence for a moment; and in that moment there was a connection, in that moment there was something other than sadness, something more than sorrow, in that moment there was a gift of God’s compassion. And that compassion, even in the midst of sadness, was a moment of holy joy. Having a heart that is open enough to receive the truth of others and to be moved to respond is to share in the compassion that comes from God; and to grow in compassion is to grow into God. It is a piece of the practice by which we grow in our sainthood. It’s part of what we celebrate this All Saints Sunday.


“Beloved, we are God’s children now” — and we celebrate that gift of adoption and grace as we celebrate all the saints, including us, this All Saints Sunday. “What we will be has not yet been revealed” — so let us celebrate that hope of even greater growth as we move forward from All Saints Sunday into God’s mission in the world every day. Amen.