The Peace of Jerusalem

           

            There was a story on television this week in a program called Code Black about a group of young people who all took poison and wound up at a Los Angeles hospital emergency room refusing treatment because their leader had told them that if they all died they would go to a place called Elysium where all was peace and joy and they could forget about their troubles.  That reminded me of that terrible story in the seventies about a place called Jonestown in Guyana where all of the inhabitants drank a poisoned Kool-Aid and died because Jim Jones, their charismatic leader had told them the same thing, that death would take them to a magical place where all was well.

            Finding heaven on earth is what we all would love.  In these troubled political times, it is especially attractive to think that maybe our God has a plan to get us to that heavenly kingdom.  Well, there is such a plan.  It has been in place for all of eternity and it is detailed in the lessons this morning.  

            This is the first Sunday in Advent.  You may be more familiar with it being the beginning of the race toward Christmas, or the Sunday following a great Thanksgiving dinner.  It is also certainly all of those things, things that we have created in our economy and in our culture.  But the importance of the season of Advent can easily be lost in all of the commercial concentration that leads to Christmas.

            All of our lessons today speak of the coming of the Kingdom of God.  There is no certainty to when this will come, but we are told again that we need to be ready because at some point the Son of God will return and come to judge the living and the dead.  That isn’t something that we need to fear, but it is something that we always need to keep in mind.  God is ultimately in charge of what goes on in this world.  It may not look like that much of the time; events seem to go on in their own dynamic. We may think that we are in charge, that we make all of the decisions, but in the end, our God is the judge of that.  That is what our lessons are trying to help us to understand. 

            Jerusalem is a metaphor for the perfect Kingdom.  It is a part of our readings in that we yearn for a perfect place where goodness is the perfect norm and all that we have learned about what God has proposed for the human race resides.  It is certainly only a metaphor.  If you have been to Jerusalem, you are certainly aware of the fact that it is an incredibly divided place. Palestinians are separated from Israelis.  There is East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians live and West Jerusalem which is the home of most Israelis.  The Israeli government is always trying to encourage Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories.  In The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Christian religions fight with each other.  The Greek Orthodox Church claims the tomb; the Armenian Church inhabits the lower level and the poor Roman Catholics are off to one side. The Episcopal Church has no place here, nor do any of the protestant bodies. Among the churches that are in this great place, there have even been fights in the street on important religious occasions.  In some ways, this holy church is a symbol of the many divisions that there are in Christianity.  

            There is much more in that city.  Israeli soldiers patrol the old city and frequently engage and accuse Arabs.  The Temple Mount, where the last Jewish temple used to be is where the Islamic Dome of the Rock points its golden dome skyward and the Al-Aksah Mosque resides.  Outside of the mount, the Western Wall is the remnant of the old temple where prayers are constantly said by the Jewish majority and notes are left in the spaces in the wall.  Again, Israeli soldiers patrol this area to keep out those who are undesirable. 

            Many years ago, when Rosie and I visited Jerusalem, at one point a group of taxi drivers got into a fight about who was going to transport the group that we were in.  One of them got a club out of his trunk and went after one of the others.  Jerusalem was not a peaceful place, as we experienced it; nor has it been over the centuries.  This city has been often ruled by Muslims.  The crusaders under Richard I took it over and strife and division has been one of the constants in this place over the years.  Nonetheless, we are urged in our psalm today to Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; may they prosper who love you.  Peace be within your walls and quietness within your towers. 

            Those are beautiful sentiments but they are not only for a peaceful city.  This is a prayer for a world where tumult and disaster are no more and the wholeness of God’s creation exists in truth and wholeness.  That is certainly what we desire. 

            We ought not to be surprised that turmoil is a part of the life of that great city.  It is a part of every place in this world.  It is a part of our own lives.  We watched our presidential campaign devolve into terrible accusations and awful language.  Now that it is over, we wonder what is coming next.  Much of the conflict is out in the open and will have to be resolved somehow.  What do we do about racism and homophobia, or the abuse of women?  These are important issues that we need to talk about and to resolve.  We have no idea what our President-elect will do when he takes office.  We can’t let fear dominate our thoughts.  What I pray for every day is that the fear that haunts our hearts will be turned to faith and we all will recognize who it is who is in charge of this world.  That is the ultimate issue that we need to face if we are going to ever have peace.  

            The peace of Jerusalem is certainly what we all need.  We need it in our lives and we need it in our communities.  We need to work toward that every day.  As these days go on and as what will happen begins to become clear continue your prayers, continue your compassion for one another.  That is where heaven truly resides, no matter what else happens.

What Do We Do Now?

            Now that the election is over, the news media is full of all kinds of predictions about what is coming next.  Some of these predictions are worrisome; that there will be deportations and wars, or that bigotry will become a theme.  I want to dismiss most of this because I know first of all that nobody really knows how things will play out and also, that no matter how things go in this country our God is still in charge.  That may not always be very obvious, but I know that it is true.
  

             We have had many moments in this nation when we have been in trouble.  It isn’t hard to look back on history and find places where we could have done things better, or when we could have avoided painful situations.  Certainly the sixties and the time of the Civil Rights movement was a time like this.  We got through it and we got through it by way of good people who cared for each other.  I remember when Martin Luther King was being excoriated for his beliefs and hounded by the FBI.  Now he is the subject of a marvelous monument on the Mall in the nation’s capital because we recognized the value that he created for this nation; how he led his followers in the freedom rides and the march from Selma to Birmingham across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.  I have always loved that symbolic march because Edmund Pettus was a Confederate general and also the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.  That Martin Luther King monument is a beautiful tribute not only to Dr. King, but to the great numbers of people who defeated bigotry and segregation and set us on the right path again.

             The other thing that happens when we look back on our history is that we become aware that we are not the only force that makes things happen.  Quietly, sometimes very subtly our God is always in charge of our destiny.

             This is Christ the King Sunday;  a time to honor and to recall the incredible work that our Lord did in this world.  It is strange that the Gospel for this day centers on the crucifixion. Our Lord Jesus lived his whole life in the Middle East, preaching to and healing the people who lived there.  He was loved and sought after but eventually arrested by the ruling powers, tried and crucified. The point of this Gospel is that even at the moment of his crucifixion and the end of his mortal life, Jesus was not done with his ministry.   We hear how on the cross he prays to God to forgive those who were crucifying him because they didn’t know what they were doing.  Then one of the thieves who was being crucified with him told him that if he was the messiah to save himself and them.  He was immediately rebuked by the other thief who said that they deserved what they were getting, but that Jesus had done nothing wrong.  He asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his Kingdom.  Jesus replied to him: today you will be with me in paradise.  Jesus ministry of forgiveness continued right up until his death.

             We may face a rocky road ahead.  Nobody really knows what will happen.  I do know that whatever it is that will come our way, we have the advantage of a God whose love reaches all of us.  God’s caring and forgiveness is stronger than any other force that may come from or at us.  I am confident that this nation and its people will be all right and that we will continue to be a great force in this world. 

             Our response to God’s call to us is extremely important.  We are called to love our neighbors as persons like ourselves.  This means for me to watch out for bigotry and bullying around me and call it out when I see it. We are responsible for one another in this world and listening to and following our Lord is very important to our welfare and the welfare of those around us. 

             This parish has for me always been an example of a place that has excellent relationships with the community.  The taking care of the Boys and Girls Club for lunch on Wednesdays and getting dinners to the people at the Honus Wagner apartments tells the world what we believe in this place.

             In our own lives, it is important that we live up to our calling as disciples of Christ.  He and his teaching is the method that we have for saving this world.  He was crucified for our sake, but even then his work wasn’t done.  On Easter morning, Jesus rose from the dead to show us that resurrection is what we can all look forward to.  That is the time when the issues of this world will matter no more and we will all be a peace with our God and with each other.  As the Lord’s Prayer says, we will see that God’s Kingdom will come on earth as it is in Heaven.  Even in death, as the hymn says, Jesus calls us over the tumult of this life’s wild restless sea.  As St. Julian of Norwich said so eloquently, all will be well, all will be very, very well.  She lived in a time of tumult and oppression.  She was always under threat; but she knew how much she was loved by her God.  We can also be certain of that and it can fill our hearts when the world seems to be at odds with all that we know.

             That is the message that we have for this world and we teach it by the way that we live our lives. Put your worries to rest and know that God’s infinite love reaches over all.

Our Election

            I’ve got to tell you that I have been devastated by this election.  I don’t know how it is all going to work out.  There wasn’t much by way of substance to the campaign; we don’t know what our President-elect will do; only what he will get rid of.  The entire congress in is the hands of his party and I am afraid that the Supreme Court will get more and more conservative, flying in the face of the direction of the country over the past number of years.  It is a time to worry. but I don’t like worry.  I need to find something positive to hold on to, to give some hope for the future.  I feel like the people of Judah who were taken captive by the Babylonians.  They were asked by their captors to” sing them some of the songs of Zion”.  Their answer was: How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?  That is Psalm 137 and is an eloquent testimony to how it feels to be lost and afraid. 

            I can’t imagine a better summary of human history than the Gospel.  It is a perfect description of what humanity has endured over the centuries.  We keep praying for peace and hoping that somehow peace will endure.  Somehow, we seem to contradict what our God hopes for all of us and pursue our own ends. 

            Through this seemingly endless election campaign, we have heard every variety of selfishness.  Narcissism has been often the theme of campaign speeches.  What will happen to our country or what will happen to all of us has been secondary to the hopes and desires of one candidate.  I don’t want to do this anymore.  I want our politicians to care deeply for the welfare of not only the country, but for the welfare of those who are knocked down, abused and left behind.  I think that many of those in that category made their desires known over these past months and I know that they have been heard.  We need care to prevail in our politicians.  Over the last number of years, that hasn’t been the case.  We have had a clogged up congress that has not been able to do much of anything.  They have even refused to hold hearings for a new Supreme Court justice, leading to an eight person court that often ties and can’t give us decisions about important subjects.   What will happen now is unclear.  How will we be governed with a narcissist in the White House and a congress that is in the hands of his political party?  We simply don’t know at this point what is going to happen.

            I have been reading author Ken Follett’s trilogy about the twentieth century. It is an excellent account of the first and second world wars, of the rise of Hitler and the Brown Shirts and then Nazism and how it was defeated and then the rise of Communism in its place.  There was terrible oppression in Europe in all of these times and it took a tremendous amount of effort and capital to get our civilization back to some kind of normality.  I know that prayer and devotion played a large part in the way that all of this was straightened out and I know that going forward after this election will require all of us to be faithful and responsible to the Gospel that our Lord has given us.  Last week’s gospel ended with the words:  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Those words are the foundation of a Christian life.  That is the way that we need to behave if we are going to continue to have a faithful community.   I have no political advice for us.  I can only rely on the God who loves us all to show us the way.

            In our Gospel this morning, Jesus talks about the terrible times that are coming.  He talks about persecution, betrayal and even desolation.  He says to his followers: You will be betrayed by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends and they will put some of you to death.  You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish.  By your endurance, you will gain your souls. 

            These are not words of comfort from our Lord, but they are words of hope.  Even if the worst happens, God will not abandon us, but will keep us in the care that has been promised to us from the beginning.  Keeping our faith in Jesus Christ is the issue.  Political regimes come and go.  They last for their time, but are not eternal.  Our God’s promises are for the long run, God will be with us no matter what it is that happens and will redeem even the worst occurrences.

            In this time of political uncertainty, we can rely on the promises that our God provides for us.  Never stop your prayers.  They are the antidote to selfishness and bigotry.  If we simply do unto others what we would have them do unto us, we can create a world there bullies have no power and bitterness can be lessened.  The legacy that has been left to us by Jesus’ followers is immense.  They all lost their lives in the course of their work.  Their faith is what has been passed down to us.  In the coming years, our faith is the legacy that we have to give to our children and our followers.  That legacy doesn’t depend on any political message.  It depends on our willingness to give ourselves in the service of others.  God will bless all that we do.

Spiritual Leadership

           

            I can remember how deeply impressed that I was with what Dr. Martin Luther King had to say during the days of the Civil Rights Movement and how distressed we were when he was killed by a lone assassin in Memphis.  I also was lifted by Billy Graham and the way that he helped this country count its blessings and move forward in honor of God.  There were also some television preachers who annoyed me.  I would listen to Jerry Falwell and wonder how he could ever think that he was eligible to be given a pulpit or Pat Robertson who always let us know how far we were from God’s love. Mr. Robertson even told us once that he had re-directed a hurricane from our shores with his profound prayer. in all of this ,I am afraid that we have lost our deep spiritual leaders who could lead us out of the depths into the glory of God.

            I can’t tell you how disappointed that I was when Franklin Graham, Billy’s son, spoke at the memorial service for those killed in the collapse of the twin towers in September, 2001.  He offered a speech that blamed the entire Muslim world for that atrocity.  He lowered rather than lifted my spirit.  I came away from that speech angry and distressed that we seemed to have so little understanding of how it is that God works in this deeply dangerous world.  I’m sorry for this because I think that we need spiritual leadership in this terribly raucous time to lead us back into the place that God would like us to be.  I am not impressed with the statements of bigotry and hate that have been so evident in this political campaign.  I want this country to be respected around the world.  When hatred seems to be the driving force in our political world, I can’t see how the rest of the world can have any respect for us.

            There is certainly hope.  We have had a series of terrible events in this world that I think have brought out the best in many people.  There have been the terrible floods in the South, particularly Louisiana; the fires in California and the destructive storms in the Midwest that have sometimes spilled over into our area.  In each of these places, lives and homes have been lost and there has been great suffering.  Also, in each of these places there have been heroes who have given their all to try to rescue  and give back lives to people who without their help would have lost everything.  I have been watching these same saints working in the terrible earthquake in Italy to bring small children out of the rubble and to make partly whole what might have  been completely lost..

            Jesus always tried to rescue rather than condemn.  When he came upon need, he did all that he could to give life and health back to those who had lost it.  There is the beautiful story of the woman that he met in Samaria who asked him to heal her daughter.  Jesus at first argued with her telling her that it was not proper to throw the food of the people to the dogs.  The woman replied to him that even the dogs ate the crumbs that fell from the table. Jesus was taught by this encounter and told the woman that her daughter was at that moment healed.  He caused the child of a Roman soldier to be healed and given back her life after all of the people around her knew that she had died.  Jesus even told the thief on the cross beside him on Calvary that this day he would be with him in Paradise.  There is a singular beauty to Jesus’ encounters with people in these ways.  When I read about them, they increase my faith and tell me that my role in this world is to pay attention to what our Lord did and to follow in his way.

            In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the writer tells us to remember to always show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so many have entertained angels unaware, and to remember those in prison as though we were in prison with them; and those who were being tortured as though we were being tortured ourselves.  This is a call for empathy and compassion, two of the great words that Jesus exemplified during his life.  It is exactly what those responders are doing in the floods, fires and destructive weather to help the people around them.

            I can see in all of this why God has created the Church.  We are here to give life and hope to the world not by the things that we say, but primarily by the things that we do.  Working to restore that which has been lost is our mission.  For Dr. King it was civil rights.  He went to prison during that battle.  He eventually lost his life on behalf of the sanitation workers in Memphis who were striking for a better work life.  I wonder what he would think of our political process today.

            Our religious life is the key to all of this.  When we treat each other with love rather than with hate we set the stage for redemption.  Redemption not only for the crises that we and others are facing but also redemption in the eyes of our God for all that we have done and what we have not done.  God bless us on our way.

Religion and Faith

           

            There was a picture on television this week of a little Syrian boy sitting in a chair, covered with blood and debris, just traumatized.  He had been a victim of an air raid in Aleppo that was a part of the incredibly harsh war that is being waged in that country against the rebels and ISIS by us along with the Syrian government and the Russians.  It was a horrible picture that reminded me of the picture of the small child who had drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in the midst of the outflow of Syrian refugees trying to get away from the horrible violence in their country. There was also a story in the paper this week talking about the first responders in Aleppo, who freed the young child in the photograph; how they are targeted themselves when they move in to try to rescue victims who are in collapsed buildings.  Many of them are killed doing this work.  What is notable to me is that these first responders ask no questions before they rescue.  They don’t care what the religion is of the victims.  They are simply aware of the need that is before them..  I also remember the picture taken by the photographer Margaret Bourke-Wright of the dust bowl family in the middle of the depression.  They were in California and they looked hungry and scared in the middle of their own trauma. That picture became a symbol of the depression that the whole country was experiencing.  Those pictures and stories are heartbreaking because we would all like to do something to take care of these people, although from far away, that is usually impossible. 

            Taking care of these people sounds like a small thing, but it isn’t.  I am touched by Jesus’ compassion in the Gospel of Luke when he is in the synagogue on the Sabbath and sees a woman who is all bent over hand can hardly walk.  He doesn’t hesitate.  He goes to her and he says: you are free from your ailment. He laid hands on her and she stood up and began praising God.   The leader of the synagogue was indignant, telling Jesus that there are six days in which to do your work, but not on the Sabbath.  Jesus yelled at him and made a great case for a woman bound by her illness for eighteen long years who ought to be freed from it, perhaps particularly on the Sabbath.  Jesus didn’t care what that woman believed; he simply knew that she needed to be healed.

            Again we have the collision of religion and faith.  Jesus is showing the people in that place the beauty of faith, the exercise of what our religion teaches us.  Doing nothing on the Sabbath is an article of religion.  Healing a woman bent over and in misery is an article of faith. Taking care of people in Aleppo in collapsed buildings is an article of faith. This is what our Lord taught us over and over again.  We are here on this earth to take care of what we find around us; to make the world a more habitable place for everyone.  Are there problems?  Of course there are.  Fixing as many of them as we can is our mission.  We aren’t sent by our Lord to make everyone believe the same things.  We are not theology teachers in this world to be sure that everyone has the right religion.  Actually, that sounds silly.  We are more like God’s emergency workers here in a chaotic world to rescue as many people as possible from the effects of the chaos that they have experienced. 

            Every week we come to our churches to worship and to lay our lives at the foot of the altar.  We are painfully aware that our lives are full of things that we wish we hadn’t done.  We ask our God for forgiveness in our confession every week.  That is why we can all approach the altar without fear that we won’t be accepted.  Everyone is invited to this altar to receive the sacrament.  That is why we are here.  I once heard Krister Stendahl, who had been the dean of  Harvard Divinity School tell me that once when he was celebrating the Eucharist at Harvard Chapel, a Sikh had come to the altar rail to receive the sacrament.  A Sikh, he said.  Wasn’t he worried about what he believed?  No, he wasn’t.  He was holding out his hands for the sacrament and I gave it to him, Dr. Stendahl said.  That is the distinction between faith and religion.  We offer the sacrament to anyone who comes because it is our command from our Lord.  What we all believe can come later, when we find ourselves in the presence of our God.  Then we will know.  Right now, we need our faith.

             I have always known that we aren’t the only religion in this world.  Muslims can claim a space, as can Jews, Hindus, Buddhists Sikhs and people of all of the ways that there are in this world of worshipping our God.  Respecting each other’s religion is one of the ways that we have of making this world a better place.  Remember, Jesus was never a Christian.  He was a Jew from the moment that he was born until his death.  Yes, he became the Christ and the basis of what we believe as Christians, but he never negated the other religions that had been created to celebrate the goodness of God.

            Can you imagine anyone saying harsh things about the Dalai Lama, or about Elie Wiesel, who survived the Nazi Concentration camps. Or about Brigham Young or any of the people who created religious communities in our history.  They were all faithful, and they were all flawed, but their work in this life was always to make this world a better place for everyone.  They also, by the way that they lived their lives, had something to teach all of us about the meaning of faith and how it can make a difference in this world.

            Our mission in this world is to make a difference.  When we help one another, we show our love, which is an outgrowth of our faith, and a response to the call of our Lord.

Our Possessions and our Responsiblity to Others

            We lost our little dog Gracie recently.  She had been declining for some time; we took her to the vet several times and gave her the medication that was prescribed.  Last Saturday night, she was unable to move her back legs, she lay on the floor panting, obviously in pain.  We looked at her and knew that we couldn’t simply let her lie there; that we had to do something about it.  We called the veterinarian and took her there.  We held her as they gave her an injection that put her to sleep.  It was a hard thing for us to do, we loved her dearly; but it was necessary.  Suffering is not something that I wanted for that little dog.  We owed her that much.

            Most of us have had moments like that in our lives; times when we have had to let go of those whom we loved.  Generally we have no choice in the matter.  Both Rosie and I have lost our parents and our grandparents and our uncles and aunts.  A dear friend of ours lost his daughter also recently..  Life is beautiful, but it has an end date.  We all know that.  It is necessary to live our lives with that in mind.

            Jesus was asked by a man to tell his brother to share his inheritance with him.  Jesus replied with a statement that said that he should take care and not let his life be ruled by his possessions.  He followed that with a parable about a rich man whose land produced in abundance.  He said:  What shall I do?  I shall pull down my barns and build larger ones so that I can store my crops.  God said to him, you Fool!  This night your life will be required of you.  We need to be very careful.  Our lives are not about our things and the wealth that we have accumulated.  We live our lives in the sight of God, with all of the ways that our God has given us to live.  We are asked to take care of one another; to love each other and our neighbor with the same Love that God has lavished on us.  Our possessions are simply tools to be used in the living of our lives and the exercise of that love.

            When I look around this world, I don’t see much of that being done.  I see great divisions in our political parties; all of them trying to accumulate the wealth that they need to meet their needs.  I hear terrible things coming out of the mouths of these leaders and I worry where their anger will take us.  This nation needs to have deep concern for those who are poor, outcast, without means to take care of themselves.  We can’t simply build bigger barns to store our wealth.  We need to use the great resources that we have been given by our God to take care of God’s people who are in need.

            I am discouraged by our current political situation.  We can make jokes about Donald Trump’s wild statements or about Hilary Clinton’s baggage; but ultimately we need to decide what is right for the good of this country and beyond that for the good of the world.  We are not the only ones who live here.  There are countless refugees from places where there is great distress; there are many immigrants who have come to our country who want nothing more than to live healthy lives.  I know that God loves all of these people and demands from us that we open our eyes to see the hurt and the devastation around us. 

            It is not necessary that we live lives of fear.  Those who wish us ill are certainly not a majority and with the help of our God can be managed.  We will find ways to do that.  We need to curb the anger that exists among us, pitting people of color against our police, and people of means against those who are poor so that we can all move ahead together.  Whatever we need to do that well is what our government needs to provide.  Shouting damning statements back and forth is certainly not the answer.  It was great to see the police and the black lives matter group gathered in Dallas to mourn the lives of the officers who died and to support each other in their common grief.  That is the way forward.

            We will bury the ashes of our little dog and cry our tears of grief and then we will get on with our lives and try to make those lives of ours count in the greater plan that our God has for this universe.  Let us continue to love and comfort each other and be the angels that God intends us to be for the good of the earth.

Policing and Race

           

            My grandson wants to be a policeman.  He has wanted this for a long time.  He found a course of study in his high school that taught the students how to do police work and he excelled in it.  Since then, he has tried to find jobs as a security guard until the time would come for him to join a real police department.  He is a good kid.  We have always loved him and he shows to me every indication that a career as a police officer would be an excellent choice for him.

            On the sides of police cars all over the country are the words  To Protect and Serve. Those words are an attempt to convey the mission of the police force to the community.  The idea is to be a force that keeps order in our towns and  protects  the citizens  from any threat.  I think that in the last decade or so, this excellent mission has been somewhat compromised by the increase in force given to our police and by the inherent racism that also exists in our society.  This was never intentional.  The increase in force started with the STAT teams who began to arm themselves and to behave as military forces.  They were equipped by surplus defense department equipment.  There is hardly a big city police department that doesn’t have STAT teams and several armored cars or other pieces of large style military equipment.

             The racist streak that permeates all of our society comes with a long history.  We enslaved African Americans from the start in this nation.  Their economic value was seen early in the South as plantations grew up, raised their crops and used slaves as their workers.  The Civil War brought an end to some of the effects of slavery, but the practice continued long after the war and is still with us today.  African Americans serve frequently in lower paying jobs and live in parts of our cities that white people don’t often frequent.  It isn’t hard to find examples of this; every city has its ghettos. 

            This has produced an “us and them” mindset in our culture.  When the Black Lives Matter movement started, many white people didn’t quite understand what was being said.  The counter argument: All Lives Matter was certainly true, but missed the point.  The problem was that African American people felt that they were often targeted by police because of their race.  Ferguson, Missouri was the beginning of an understanding that there was something terribly wrong with the way that police officers were approaching people of color.  The killing of Michael Brown in that community by officer Darren Wilson triggered a protest that was felt all over the country.  Subsequently the white police officer involved in that killing was exonerated, which brought more protests.  This has happened over and over again in our culture.  Whenever there is a police shooting of an African American, there is a protest, followed by an exoneration; recently, this predictable protesting grew into horror after two police killings in two nights in Baton Rouge and in St. Paul provided an excuse for a former army veteran to kill five police officers and to wound a number of others in Dallas, Texas who at that time were supervising a Black Lives Matter protest.  These three horrible events need to be clearly seen as an indictment of all of us for the way that we act toward one another.  We need desperately to find a way to help our police and our citizens of whatever race to get along and to see the “Protect and Serve” words as truly meaningful for everyone in our communities.

            I was impressed by the way that the Pittsburgh Police department accompanied those who were protesting in the streets of this city.  There was no animosity, only a spirit of protection for those involved in the parade and the protest.  That is a model that ought to be held up for all of us in this society as a way for our police departments to act out their mission. Certainly, this is what the Dallas police were trying to do.

            My hope is that my grandson will be able to enter a police department where those words Protect and Serve are deeply meaningful to the members of his team.  They are wonderful words and mean a great deal to our society.  We certainly need protection and we need competent police to serve us with their skills. 

What do we do about Orlando?

           

             When I think about what went on in Orlando, those words from Galatians come to mind:  There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; all are one in Christ Jesus.  I’m sure if he lived in this time, Paul might have added straight or gay and black or white  to that list.  The point of all of it is to take the things that divide us, the categories that we are locked into and make them irrelevant.  All of us are one in Christ Jesus.  That is the point of what Paul is talking about.

            We have spent this week worrying about our divisions.  Are we being besieged by Muslim terrorists?  Is it all right to have gay bars in our cities?  How can we keep our people safe when there is so much worry about what separates us from each other?  There have been renewed calls for gun legislation, which is unlikely to happen.  There has been political finger pointing about who is responsible for all of this.  None of it has been at all helpful.  We still have our divisions and we still have all of the hatred lying out there waiting for an opportunity to make itself known.  What we need to understand is that it isn’t a Muslim insurrection that is causing all of this; it is our inability to accept and understand the ways that we are divided and to minister to the divisions in the same way that we care for everyone else.

            When I served as the interim rector of St. James parish in Charleston, WV for almost two years about fifteen years ago, I found myself at the head of a primarily African American parish that had more people with doctorates than any parish where I have ever served.  These were also people who cared very much about their community and who were all involved in programs that had to do with the welfare of people beyond their walls.  I was deeply impressed with the energy that this congregation put forth as a result of their faith and their determination that everyone in the community mattered to them.  They taught me a lot about the way that community matters to all of us and how essential it is that we take part in doing what we can to improve the lives of everyone in it.  Atonement reminds me of St. James.  You now have a nine week program to provide lunches for the young students next door.  This is what community means.

            In Paul’s time, there were incredible divisions in his community.  There were religious arguments, great fear of the Romans who governed the whole of the country.  There were even divisions among the Christians.  Whether Paul was accepted as one of Jesus’ apostles was up for grabs.  That question was never adequately settled.  Paul became the foremost ambassador of the message of Jesus, even though he never met him.  His insights to the Galatians about our divisions are very helpful when we consider what needs to be done in our own age to bring us together and minimize the things that separate us.

            So what do we do about it?  There have been many gatherings of people to pray for the people of Orlando and what they have experienced; I have seen many postings on Facebook and in my mail from people lamenting this horrible deed.  Blood drives have produced many pints of blood that has been made available to those working with the injured in Orlando.  We are reacting as we always do to tragic events of this nature, and all of it is very helpful.   Our legislators need to act and to find some unity in what they do.  This needs to happen as quickly as possible to avoid any more tragedies.

            Above all, we all need to keep this nation and the people who have suffered loss in our prayers.  Do that faithfully every day.  When Elijah went south to avoid the wrath of Jezebel, he found himself in a cave on Mount Horeb, the mountain of God.  He called out to God to speak to him.  There was a terrible wind, but God was not in the wind; there was an earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake; there was a large fire, but God was not in the fire.  Then Elijah heard what has been called a still small voice.  It was God speaking comfort to Elijah.  God didn’t tell him to stop and hide; he told him to return to his work and to head for the wilderness of Damascus where he can be of some use.

            I think that is how God speaks to us; in a still, small voice, a voice of comfort and help in our times of distress.  Listen for that voice and do what it says.  Keep your prayers strong and keep those who have suffered in your hearts and minds.  It will make an incredible difference. Love and comfort are what God requires of us.  It is how we overcome our divisions and repair what has been so tragically done.

The Holy Spirit as Feminine

             In 1991 on our sabbatical, we spent a month in England touring and enjoying the great history and geography of that country.  On Trinity Sunday that year, we were in Coventry, the place where Lady Godiva had her great ride.  We were at the great Cathedral where the second or third priest on their staff preached an excellent sermon on the Trinity.  That has been my experience in ministry.  Clergy avoid  talking about the Trinity if they can  .  It is much too complicated to explain.  Is it three gods, or what?  What are we talking about here? So they generally pass the sermon on to a lesser member of their staff.  I loved what that priest said in his sermon, but I loved the architecture of the place even more.  Coventry Cathedral was bombed by the Germans in November of 1940.  The wreckage of the old church stands beside the beautiful new building. When Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the then Dean of the Cathedral went through the wreckage, they found a cross made of the burned pieces of lumber that formed the roof of the church.  That cross now stands in the ruined sanctuary of the burned church.

              What they have done to commemorate the history of the place is remarkable.  Over the altar in the new Cathedral is a massive hanging of the risen Christ on a throne holding a scepter.  The seated savior looks out over the crowd of parishioners through an etched glass window onto the wreckage of the old cathedral.  The etchings on the window are all of the saints of the church, the apostles, and many others who have died in the propagation of our faith.  It is a great theological statement about how Christianity has struggled in this world to bring hope and reconciliation in a world full of terror and destruction.  I think that Coventry Cathedral is one of the great buildings of Christianity. 

            But they didn’t just build a building.  They also created an organization called the Community of the Cross of Nails.  It is a group dedicated to reconciliation and the bringing of hope to places in the world where it is lacking.  They have done a lot to bring together people in England and Germany who experienced horror and destruction during World War II.  Dresden was also bombed by the Allies toward the end of the war.  Coventry has reached out to them to provide words of friendship and the two cities have joined together in some hopeful projects to bring a sense of forgiveness and hope to the residents of their cities. They also have reached out to Japan and other places destroyed by war to bring hope and change to them. This is silent Christian work that means a great deal to the world, even though it doesn’t get much publicity.

            I think that is the essence of what Christianity is supposed to be about.  All around us are places where turmoil and disaster have overwhelmed many people.  Like the people of Coventry, we need to reach out to these people and offer the ministry of the Christ to them. It is too easy to simply condemn the turmoil in the many places in the world where it devastates people.  It is much better to reach out and to help. 

            But let’s get back to the Trinity.  In the scripture from the Book of Proverbs that was read a few moments ago, the writer speaks of Wisdom as the foundation on which God brought all of creation into being.  She is the pronoun used to describe Wisdom, This is the undergirding of the Holy Spirit.  Wisdom tells us that She was here when all of the world was created. That She was daily God’s delight, rejoicing before God always and rejoicing in the inhabited world and delighting in the Human race.  I notice the fact that the Holy Spirit is described to us in feminine terms.  This gives us Jesus, the male portion of God and the Holy Spirit the female side of God.  That ought to tell us what our Creator thinks about the relationship that we all ought to have with each other.  All of our genders are necessary in the ongoing maintenance of this great creation,. If that isn’t obvious to us, we are in great trouble.  I can’t understand all of the gender bashing that seems to go on in this society.  We need to love one another.  That is Jesus commandment; and it seems to me that setting one gender against another is a rather stupid way of doing that.

            I want to honor the Trinity.  I want to recognize that all of God is active in this world.  The keeping of female Wisdom at the top of the deity is a very good idea. I’m impressed that the Roman Catholic Church is beginning to investigate the possibility of the ordination of women.  The Pope thinks that perhaps some of them could be deacons.  I’m glad to hear that.  The ordination of women in the Episcopal Church has been a great gift. My first associate rector at Christ Church was Pat Carnahan.  She headed up the establishment of St. Brendan’s in Franklin Park and was their first rector, She is a great priest who built a great congregation.

              When I look around this parish, I see women doing a lot of the thinking.  The leaders of our vestry and the movers and shakers in this place are our women.  The men help immensely, but the women make many of   the decisions.  Leaning on their wisdom is essential for us to fulfill our mission. We are fortunate to have all of our talented people.  They are a gift to us and to the world around us. 

The Inconvenience of Temptation

            When I was in my second year at seminary, our daughter needed to go to her high school for an event.  The night was a Wednesday and the seminary always had a midweek service on that night.  I wasn’t able to go, so my daughter and I got in the car and I drove her to her high school. I wasn’t particularly happy about that.  I really wanted to go to the service. On the way to the high school, we passed the seminary chapel where the service was in progress.  They were reciting the creed.  I heard them saying: We believe in God, the Father Almighty and in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord.  All of a sudden, I understood the implication of those words and I felt immediately connected to that congregation.  The “we” included me and my daughter and my wife and all of us who although not attending that service, were a part of the faith.  I have always remembered that moment as a time of connection, a connection of my God to my life. My reluctance to take my daughter where she needed to go disappeared and I was again connected to my family, my seminary and my life.

            Life happens, as they say.  We need to do what is required of us, even if it is sometimes inconvenient.  Jesus returned from the Jordan River where he had been baptized by John the Baptist and was immediately led by the Spirit into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil for forty days.  This wasn’t particularly convenient for him.  Listening to the devil and his temptations must have been a harrowing experience.  But it was a very human experience.  You and I are tempted constantly.  Sometimes we give in to those temptations and fall into sin.  That also isn’t particularly convenient for us because sin has consequences.  We also don’t always like the consequences.  This season of Lent is a time for us to take stock of our lives and try to get back in tune with what our God has in mind for us. 

            The thing about Jesus’ temptations is that they were all things that he needed very much.  The devil knew that he was hungry, so he suggested to Jesus that he use his power to turn some of the stones into bread so that he could eat.  Jesus told him: One does not live by bread alone.

He then took our Lord to the top of a mountain and showed him all of the cities of the world.  He told Jesus that all of these would he give to him, if only Jesus would worship him.  Jesus answered him: Worship the Lord your God and serve only him. The last temptation was to take Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and suggest that he throw himself down from the height and then quoted Psalm 91 to him: that God would put angels in charge over him lest he strike his foot against a stone. Jesus said to him: Do not put the Lord your God to the test. The scripture says, having finished his tests, the devil departed from him until an opportune time.

            Nicholas Kazantzakis used this moment in Jesus life as the inspiration for a book called The Last Temptation of Christ which was made into a great movie.  In this story, Jesus is on the cross and is visited by a small girl who suggests that he can come down from the cross and live a normal life.  Jesus almost in a trance because of the pain of the cross agrees, goes back to Bethany where he marries Mary, has some children and begins to live normally.  He encounters Paul who says to Jesus, I really didn’t need you.  I could have done everything by myself.  All of a sudden, Jesus wakes up, back on the cross, still in pain, but knowing that his destiny is to be exactly where he is.  He suffers his death for all of humankind and after three days, he rises from the tomb and provides for all of us the proof of eternal life that God has promised to us all.

            That is what this season of Lent is all about.  We are not the Son of God.  We are not immune from the temptations that come our way.  What we do have is God’s promise to us to forgive our sins and to receive us back, even when we have strayed.  That is the certainty that we can always rely on, even when we have reached the bottom.  Jesus came to us not to make us perfect, but to help us in our humanity.  That is what we all so desperately need.  

Transfiguration as a Preview

            The story of the transfiguration of Jesus is a very special story.  Some scholars believe that it is a misplaced resurrection story; but it is placed in Luke’s Gospel as a prefiguring of the glorious time in Jerusalem when Jesus rises again.  He has told his disciples several times that this would take place, but like you and me, they had a very hard time believing it.

           Jesus took Peter, James and John up on the mountain to pray.  While he was praying, a cloud came over them, Jesus face shone brightly and all of a sudden Moses and Elijah were standing with him.  Peter babbled something about building houses, but Jesus ignored this.  Then a voice of God from the cloud spoke and said: This is my beloved Son, listen to him! Nothing more was said.  The disciples and Jesus came down from the mountain to find a crowd of people at the bottom with a man who wanted his son to be healed.  The other disciples had been trying to effect the healing, without any results.  Jesus rebuked the demon that was possessing the son and the young man was healed.  He then was given back to his father. The passage ends with the statement that  All were astounded at the greatness of God.

            The mountain of the Transfiguration is supposedly Mount Tabor in Galilee.  Rosie and I went to that mountain back in 1983 on a tour of the Holy Land.  We were taken up the mountain by a team of wild Palestinian taxi drivers who drove like madmen up a narrow road where we thought we would probably never survive.  Several times, other taxis passed us on the way down while we were on our way up.

            When we arrived at the top, we discovered a peaceful place with a lovely temple that existed.  A German tour group was inside the temple singing hymns.  Strangely, there was a mist covering the top of the mountain that certainly reminded us of the story of the Transfiguration.  It was a holy moment at the top of that mountain.

            What I believe about the Transfiguration is that it was a holy time for those three special apostles to see the Risen Christ in all of his Glory before the time that was coming in Jerusalem that would include the crucifixion of their Lord.  It was a moment for those three to see the Glory of their Lord on full display before the time of his death.  It makes real for me the remarkable truth of the mysterious resurrection of Jesus, something that you and I have never seen, and along with it the promise of eternal life.

            I think that we need to know this because our lives all end in death and we need some certainty about eternal life.  When I have stood in church aisles at a funeral I have always wished that I could preside at a resurrection for the sake of the families involved.  The pain is often almost overwhelming and we need a glimmer of hope in that moment. I think that is what the Transfiguration was supposed to be for those prominent apostles.  Peter never really got the message.  His fear drove him to deny his Lord after the crucifixion; but Peter came around and became one of the great bearers of the truth of Jesus and his love after the resurrection was made real to him.  It was Peter who was specifically forgiven by Jesus for his denials on the shore of the Sea of Galilee when Jesus asked him three times if he loved him and Peter replied each of those times that he loved him.  That is when Jesus told him to feed my sheep. 

            That is the role of the church today.  To acknowledge the truth of the resurrection of Jesus and the certainty of eternal life, our job is to take care of the multitudes among us who have little or nothing.  To take care of the people whom we encounter in our daily lives.  Like Jesus at the bottom of the mountain, when he found the young man who needed to be healed when his disciples were unable to do it, he responded with love and compassion.  He didn’t ask if the young man deserved to be healed, he simply did what needed to be done.  Jesus had a heart full of love for those whom he met. 

            Being sure that our love is on display when we walk through our daily lives is what our Lord asks of us.  We simply need to care. When we do that, we prove to the world the truth of God’s love even in the face of disaster.  God is present in this world in the profound love that we show to each other and to all of those whom the world seems not to love and are excluded.  They are not excluded by God and we need to help them to understand that.

Change, Conflict and Love

            In the late seventies, when I had been the rector of St. Philip’s in Moon Township for only a short time, the prayer book was changed.  When I got to the parish, they had never tried any of the various revisions that had been provided; the green book, the zebra book, so I took them through the whole process in a year’s time.  Finally, after the new book was accepted and we had purchased our copies, one Saturday, we took the old 1928 prayer books out of the pews and distributed the new books.

            The next day was Sunday and we used the new prayer books for the first time.  After the service, one woman came to me at the door of the church as she was leaving, pounded my chest with her clenched fists and said to me: “you have ruined this church!: I could have argued with her and given her all of the reasons why the prayer book needed to be changed, but somehow, with God’s grace, I didn’t do any of that. Instead, I reached out my arms and I held her for a few moments while she cried.  I certainly understood her feelings.  She thought that she had been betrayed by her church.  She was blaming me because I was the only visible person with authority that she could see.  She continued to come to church.  We didn’t lose her.  I was glad that I was able to show her some compassion in her time of trouble.

            When Jesus went to Nazareth, it was after he had healed people in Capernaum, the people in his hometown expected that he would do the same things there.  He read the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, told them that in their hearing the prophecies had been fulfilled.  He then went on to tell them that he knew that they expected him to do the same things that he had done in Capernaum.  He then said that a prophet has no standing is his home town.  The people then tried to throw Jesus over a cliff and that failed.  Jesus simply walked away.  That is a simple story with a great truth.  We don’t honor our local prophets in quite the same way that we honor those who come from afar.  But it was worse than that for Jesus.  The people of Nazareth saw him only as the son of a carpenter, one of the lowly folk.  Here was the Son of God among his own people and not treated in quite the way that he imagined that he ought to be accepted.

            We have also had a strange incidence of this in the past couple of weeks.  The Primates of the Anglican Communion, meeting in Canterbury, England have decided that the Episcopal Church ought to be excluded from denominational decision making for a period of three years because our General Convention has approved allowing its clergy to officiate at same sex weddings.  This has been a boiling issue for a long time.  In 1976, when the church approved the ordination of women, the Anglican Communion also went bananas and some threatened to throw us out of the denomination.  When Katherine Jefferts Schori was elected Presiding Bishop of the church nine years ago, we were again under fire for permitting such a thing.  Unfortunately, it is mostly the African bishops who are heading up the protests against what we are doing in this country. 

            There is certainly nothing new here.  Change always produces conflict.  We saw that in the Reformation when Luther posted his 96 theses on the church in Wittenburg; we have seen it countless times in our own communion when differences of opinion have brought us to great argument.  We certainly saw it in Pittsburgh when Mr. Duncan took a number of our churches with him when he left the Episcopal Church over what he termed our lack of a conservative position on the many issues that confront us. 

            Paul also faced conflict when he preached to the churches that he founded.  I think that his most eloquent statement is what we heard this morning in the reading from First Corinthians, chapter 13.  This is Paul’s statement about the meaning of love and what it means to us to show love in every instance.  He says that even if he has faith enough to move mountains, gives away all of his possessions and even gives away his body, if he doesn’t have love, it means nothing.  That is the word that we need to hear in the middle of all of the conflicts that we experience, particularly in this election time.  We fail miserably if we fail to love in the middle of our disagreements.  When we can keep this in mind, we will make the right choices and do the right things.  Our God is with us in the life and teaching of our Lord Jesus.

The Eucharist and Celebration

            When we first went to seminary in 1972, we didn’t really have a church to attend every week.  Christmas season came and we wanted very much to find a place to celebrate this wonderful holiday.  We looked in the paper and found a parish in Washington, DC called St. Stephen and the Incarnation that advertised: Everyone is Welcome, so we went there on Christmas Eve to celebrate the birth of our Lord.

            The place was in a celebratory mood.  When it came time to bring up the elements for consecration into the bread and wine of the Eucharist, there was a popping of corks around us and we discovered that several of the people in the parish had brought cold duck to use for communion.  The bottles were taken up to the altar and the rector, a wonderful man named Bill Wendt, came forward with Christmas lights on his chasuble to receive them.  The people all gathered around the altar for the prayer of consecration of the elements.  A sweet roll was on the altar to use as the bread for communion, and the cold duck was poured into a large vessel that looked a little bit like a martini glass.  .  The people were all elated and ready for a wonderful time.  There was nothing wrong with all of this.  There was a measure of solemnity in all of it.  There was simply a wonderful mood of celebration. 

            This was the seventies and this was one of the more liberal parishes in the Diocese of Washington; but the beauty of that Christmas Eve and the way that those people welcomed the newborn Christ has never left me. I learned more about liturgy in that evening than in all of my three years in seminary.  I loved what it said about the Eucharist that we celebrate every Sunday.  Celebration is certainly the right word.

            The scripture in John’s Gospel about the wedding feast at Cana is a magnificent story.  Jesus has gone with his mother and his disciples to a wedding feast in the small town of Cana, a few miles northeast of Nazareth.  During the feast, the wine ran out and they didn’t have any more.  Mary asked Jesus to do something about it.  He told her that he couldn’t because it wasn’t his time.  Mary ignored that and told the servants around them to do whatever Jesus told them to do.  There were a number of large vats in the back of the hall which were used for Jewish purification rites.  This was a desert community and feet were constantly covered with dirt and sand. When people came indoors, they needed to wash their feet and their hands before they could interact with the people.  Jesus told the servants to fill those vats to the brim with water, then to draw some off and take it to the steward of the feast.

            They did that and discovered that the water had been changed into wine.  The steward sampled it and told the bridegroom that most people save the good wine until last because the guests will have become drunk; but you have saved the good wine until last.  This was high praise for the bridegroom.

             Theologians have looked at the wedding feast at Cana as the origin of the Eucharist; the creating of the celebratory moment when bread and wine were consumed and the changing of the water into wine became a model for the way that we celebrate communion to this day.  We don’t change the water into wine, but in the words of the Eucharistic prayer, the wine and the bread become the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus to feed our faith and to carry us on our way in this world becoming models of the Lord’s love that has been so graciously shared with us in communion.  That model of celebration that we discovered at that church in Washington is a perfect way to look at our major sacrament.  We are celebrating the presence of our Lord in our lives as we go about our daily lives. 

            There is another moment in the Gospels when the same thing happens.  After Jesus’ resurrection, he encounters two men on their way to Emmaus and joins them.  They talk about the amazing thing that has happened over the last several days, how this Jesus who was crucified has apparently risen from the grave, or at least some people say that.  When they got to their destination, they invited Jesus to come to eat with them.  When they were at the table, Jesus took some bread, broke it and all of a sudden the eyes of the men were opened and they knew that Jesus was with them.  He then disappeared.

            What is true here each week in our celebration of the Eucharist is that we are fed with the body and blood of our Lord.  Jesus gave his life for us all and the church has never forgotten that.  His gift to us of himself is what we share each week in this profound ceremony.  I am always in awe when I pray over the bread and the wine that you bring forward and watch as it becomes the sacrament of our Lord’s presence in this place and in our lives.  Jesus presence in our lives is what we have in this faith of ours; Jesus presence in everything that we do and in everything that happens to us.  We have God’s assurance that we are never alone no matter what happens.  I have seen this countless times in this world.  No matter how bad it gets, we are never alone.  Remember that Jesus suffered a horrible death on the cross, cried out and asked why God had forsaken him, but yet was given new life by God who loved him and who loves us.  We never need fear.  God loves us always.