Storied Grace

A sermon for Proper 26
October 30, 2022

Once upon a time there was a man who lived in an old Victorian house. The house was once called The Painted Lady of the town. Now she was drab from decades of disrepair. The man had given up trying to keep up that big house by himself, with the exception of one spot. The porch. He took care of the porch. He would sit on his rocking chair and rock the days and much of the nights away. Alone. When he wasn’t rocking he was sweeping the porch, making sure the rails were sturdy. And above all, he made sure the porch ceiling was always freshly painted. He painted it the color it has always been, the distinctive haint blue. The color that was said to keep the ghosts and evil spirits away. 

The house, they say, was haunted. I don’t know about that, but it would be easy to believe. The man, they say, was haunted, too. That was obvious. His eyes were empty. 

One day, an old friend of the man’s came into town after decades away. He stopped by the house to see his friend, there, rocking on the front porch. The friend said hi, enthusiastically! The man sat there, rocking, back and forth. The friend tried to make conversation. He asked about everything. He told stories. The man, if he responded at all, only gave one word answers, a nod, a grunt. 

Finally the friend had enough. He stomped his feet and yelled he was leaving if he didn’t talk to him. That got the man’s attention, and he turned around. The friend expected him to be angry. But the man was not angry. He was crying. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m out of practice. No one has talked to me in so long.” 

“What happened to you?” the friend asked. The man began to explain. He had left the town after high school graduation. He went to college, and met a girl whom he would marry. Eventually he moved home. He hit it big with one of those once-in-a-million-years business ideas; it even got him a feature in Arkansas Money & Politics. Friends and neighbors poured money into his idea. It was only later that everyone discovered it was too good to be true. No one called it fraud, but that’s what it was. The man, driven by greed, had intentionally cheated money out of his fellow townspeople. They turned on him. His wife left in shame with his kids. In a matter of days, his life was turned upside-down as his past caught up with him. 

People said the man didn’t have a heart, but that wasn’t true. He wished he could go back and make things right. He had even tried to, paying back small sums of money as he was able. He was still despised. Since being found out, he had been followed by a kind of shadow of sorrow and regret–sorrow and regret so strong it had almost taken on physical properties. A haint, he called it. He couldn’t shake it. It would keep him awake at night, pacing the floor of his bedroom. He would catch glimpses of it as he rounded corners in his house, just a fleeing shadow. The only place he got peace was on that porch, under the haint blue ceiling, rocking, back and forth. 

Haints, or ghosts, aren’t real, the kids in Sunday school would be quick to tell me. But they would be wrong in a sense. Of course, I’m not talking about ghosts like Casper or the stories we tell around campfires. I’m talking about something we carry around within us, something that burdens us, something we cannot shake. Something like that man’s haint. 

We carry around deep regrets we cannot share. We carry around pain that may only be known to us. We carry around shame and guilt of past decisions that feel so heavy that sometimes we feel we will suffocate under the pressure. The what-ifs, the whys, the how-comes that keep us awake at night, pacing the floor of our bedrooms. The shadows of the past, of things done and left undone, that flee around the corner, just out of sight, but always felt, always taunting us with reminders of how we’ve messed up. Haints. 

I hope the kids in the Sunday school building never know the reality of that type of ghost story. I hope they never become acquainted with that haint. But many carry them around. 

I bet Zacchaeus carried one around. Zacchaeus is a familiar story. We learn about him and how short he was in Sunday school. But that’s not what sticks out to me in this story now. What sticks out to me now is the lengths Zacchaeus goes to to see Jesus; and once he meets Jesus, the extraordinary lengths he goes to to show his repentance. 

Luke tells us that Jesus is visiting Zacchaeus’s town, and that Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector and was rich. Tax collectors generally got rich by cheating their neighbors, charging high interest and fees on top of already high taxes. For that and for their collaboration with the occupying Roman Empire, they were hated. Zacchaeus hears that Jesus is coming to town, so he runs to see him. He can’t see him, though. Luke tells us it’s because he is short in stature; maybe so, but his relationships in town didn’t help him at all. It’s easy to imagine him being pushed to the back of the crowd. So Zacchaeus has to run ahead, away from all of those people, and he climbs a tree. Why? Well, surely so he can see Jesus. But I also wonder if he wanted to hide behind the branches and leaves. 

As we read the story, it’s clear Zacchaeus is desperate to lay eyes on Jesus. He had no doubt heard about him. He knew what Jesus was famous for, and he just had to see him pass by. I can’t help but imagine that Zacchaeus may have been like that man with the haint. Zacchaeus was carrying some things. Some guilt, some shame. He was being followed by the ghosts of his past, the ghosts of what he had done and left undone, all in the name of greed. But he hears Jesus is coming, and maybe he thinks if he can just see Jesus, he can finally shake those haints. 

Jesus sees him. We know the story. Jesus has lunch at his house. And Zacchaeus shows he is truly repentant; he is ready for a change, and he not only says as much, but he backs it up with his actions. He tells Jesus, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” He’s shaking off that haint. He’s confronting his past head on. He’s making right those things that are wrong, bringing into the light those things that rest in the dark. 

Jesus responds: “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.” Jesus is telling him he’s a child of God. He’s done some things in the past, but the guilt and the shame can no longer take him as a prisoner. His past can no longer define him. Zacchaeus is a child of God. He belongs to God, and God belongs to him. The shadow is dispelled; the haint is gone. 

Like the man, like Zacchaeus, we carry around shadows. We carry around haints. The past, guilt, shame. Jesus dispels them all. The light that lit the world shines into our hearts, even into the darkest recesses, and speaks peace. The Word that spoke the world into being speaks into our hearts, even into those secrets never heard, never spoken, and speaks forgiveness. The Son that gave up everything speaks into our hearts, into the most haunted corners of our consciences, and calls us a child of the Most High God. 

Jesus is calling. He has called us out of our sycamore tree, off of our porch with its haint blue ceiling, away from all of our striving to handle things ourselves, to keep the haints at bay. Salvation has, indeed, come to our house since Jesus stepped under our roof. We have not been left alone, wandering about, lost. Jesus has come with healing, with victory, with the peace of God, with salvation. There is no more room for those things that haunt us, for we belong to Jesus, and he belongs to us. The haints of the past have no claim on our lives, for Jesus claims us as his own, now and forever. 

A sermon for Proper 25
October 23, 2022

Well, no surprise. Today I’m talking about stewardship because October is stewardship month! This past week, pledge cards were sent to you in the mail. If you haven’t received one in the next few days, let me know. When you’re ready to pledge, you can drop your pledge card in the offering plate, or you can send it in the mail to Candace. If you’ve never pledged before, here’s how it works. On your card, you will tell us how much you plan to contribute in 2023. It’s an act of faith and thanksgiving. Once all of our pledges are in, the Vestry will make a responsible budget for the coming year. So you know, the Vestry has set the goal of collecting $140,000 in pledges for this next year.

Because I know you are all generous givers, let me say in advance: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Because of your sacrificial giving of time, talent, and treasure, this church will continue to stand, proclaiming the love of God in Christ Jesus for all, proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, giving hope to a hopeless world, healing to a broken world, faith to a despairing world, love to a hateful world. That’s why the church is here. 

Our gospel passage from Luke today is kind of a strange one to pair with stewardship. Jesus encounters a group of people who, our gospel tells us, trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt. Two men are going up to the temple: a pharisee, someone who has this religion thing figured out, and a tax collector, a sinner. The pharisee prays, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people. I fast twice a week. I tithe my income to the church.” But then we have this tax collector, who gets it right. He prays, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” 

The Pharisee, in appearance at least, is doing everything right. What he does is even admirable. He fasts and he tithes–just as we are encouraged to fast when appropriate and tithe our income. These are righteous actions, actions that please God, commendable actions for you and me. And yet he gets something wrong. His motivation. He is doing these things to exalt himself, to lift himself up, to make himself look good. And he does that at the expense of others. He mounts ridicule on them—thank God I’m not like all those scoundrels, bless their hearts.

What the Pharisee does—fasting and tithing—is good, and it matters. But his motivations matter, too, and they’re not good. He’s trying to puff himself up instead of glorify God. He’s tearing down his neighbors instead of helping them. His motivation doesn’t match his actions. 

As for this tax collector, all he can do is ask God for mercy. He knows he’s a sinner. He is humbled before God. Of course, if this tax collector wants to grow in God, if he wants to come to know God more, he’s going to have to change. Tax collectors cheated people, so he’s going to have to make amends. He cannot just continue to do what he’s doing Monday-Friday and then pray for mercy come the weekend. He might actually learn from the Pharisee here: he should learn to fast and he should give a tithe to the work of God. 

His attitude is right; his motivations are good; and all of that matters. But his actions matter, too. And if he wants to grow in God, his actions need to match his motivation. 

Our actions matter. Our motivation matters. And they need to match up. Our actions should serve God and reflect God. The motivation for our actions must also point to God, and not to ourselves. Stewardship month is about this very thing. We pray about how we should use our gifts of time, talent, and treasure for the Kingdom of God. Notice there is an action and a motivation there: we are using our time, talent, and treasure. Why? For the Kingdom of God and for the glory of God. We pledge to give to the church. Why? So that the love of God in Christ Jesus will be proclaimed to further the Kingdom of God. None of this is about us or making ourselves look good. It’s about giving to God, in humble thanksgiving for all of our many blessings. 

Everything we do, and the reasons we do it, should point to God. Where we put our time, our energy, our money, should all point to Christ and the Kingdom of God. If we work on that, by God’s grace, we will be able to stand before God and say, like Paul in today’s reading from II Timothy, we have fought the good fight; we have finished the race; we have kept the faith. We have been good stewards, good caretakers, of our many blessings from God. And through us, in our actions and our motivations, people can see Christ reflected. They can see God’s goodness and love for all. 

Stewardship is about seeing all of ourselves, all of our lives, everything about us, all that we are and all that we have, as an offering to God. Just as we offer bread and wine week after week, so too we offer all that we are to God day after day. 

Are we the Pharisee or the tax collector? Maybe there’s a bit of both within us. That’s true for me, anyway. I wonder how God is calling us to grow in action and motivation, getting our lives to match up with what we say and what we believe? Stewardship for 2023 is a good place to start. 

A sermon for Proper 24
October 16, 2022

There once was a widow woman. She lived down at the end of one of these farm roads, way off by herself. Her husband died 20 years ago, leaving her a little Toyota truck. She drove into town once a week for groceries, to see the doctor, to attend to what she had to. Then back to the farm. Her road was bad; she needed that truck. You’ve seen roads like hers. Deep drainage ditches on either side. After each heavy rain, the road gave way a little more. The road eventually eroded to the point that it was nearly impossible for her to get down that road and into town. 

She called the county judge. “Judge, my road needs fixed.” She knew the Judge. She voted for him. They had grown up together. He didn’t live far from her, as the crow flies. “Well, we don’t have much money for roads, ma’am. They’re all in bad shape. I’ll get a crew out to look at it.” Funny thing was, his road was brand new. She waited. No crew. She called again. And then again. Finally she was calling everyday. She couldn’t use the road anymore. Eventually the Judge stopped answering her call. 

She wasn’t going to give up. She was a hardened woman. Life had thrown plenty her way. She was a fighter. She called a farmer neighbor. He picked her up in his tractor. He shook his head when she told him the story. “That’s not right,” he said. The farmer’s wife drove her to the Judge’s office. The Judge saw her coming and turned out his lights. She waited in the waiting room. All morning. All afternoon. The farmer’s wife was with her. She and her husband got mad. The farmer called the farm bureau president first. The Judge would not be welcome at that year’s dinner. Then he called their senator in Little Rock. The senator called the Judge, who, by the way, would be up for re-election that year. When the Judge finally worked up the courage to peek his head out of his office, he could only come up with a few words. “Road crew will be there tomorrow.” 

Jesus tells a story about a woman like this today. A persistent widow woman who prevails against the unjust judge, the corrupt systems of our rotten politics. We know people like her. We know they are often ignored because they can’t make a big splash. They are often taken advantage of because they don’t have the right friends in the right places. Jesus’s time was not so different from our own. 

Jesus tells us this story to commend the widow’s example, to tell us to be like her in prayer and persistence, and not to lose heart no matter what. We are to pray persistently in all things. Jesus does not only mean praying with our words. We are also to pray with our actions, with everything in our lives. Our entire lives, every word and every action, is a prayer. When we live like that, things happen. It might be slow. It might be frustrating. There may be many unjust judges standing in our way. But eventually something breaks through. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, the arch of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. It bends that way because of these persistent widows, because of those constant prayers that blend words and actions. The Kingdom of God will not be stopped, not even by an unjust judge. 

That widow’s prayer can be summed up in some simple words we say everyday: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s Kingdom is one in which no widow is ignored, no child is forgotten, no hurting person is forsaken, and everyone has what they need for life. God’s Kingdom is one in which the lowly are lifted up and the high and mighty are brought down to size; the humble are exalted and the proud are reminded they are no better than anyone else; the pure is normalized and the corrupt is cleaned. God’s kingdom breaks out in this broken and sinful world whenever the will of God is done. God’s kingdom breaks out despite the odds because that prayer is prayed persistently with words and actions: thy kingdom come. 

What does it look like when we pray “thy kingdom come,” not only with our words, but also with our actions? Well, it might look like that widow, not giving up for a moment, being persistent, taking everything to God in prayer and then putting on our work boots. That prayer might look like that farmer and his wife, seeing something wrong and knowing that God had put them in a position to do something about it. That prayer might look a lot less pious, like a senator who wants a donor off his back or a judge who wants to be re-elected. But without knowing it, they are participating in God’s designs. 

Who are we in this story, this ordinary story? Where do we find ourselves? It’s a question of stewardship: How are we using, or not using, the gifts God has given us? Are we praying that God’s kingdom would break out among us, even right now, with our words and our actions? Or are we being that stumbling block that has to be twisted and turned, manipulated to fit God’s designs? 

God has given us a life and a small amount of time. God hears us when we pray, and sometimes, God is going to put us to work to answer that prayer. One day God’s kingdom will break out in a big way, rupturing our very reality, ending this age, stopping time itself. But until then, God’s kingdom breaks out in small but significant ways, bit by bit, all around us. Are we going to stand in its way? Or are we going to pray for its coming, with our words and our actions? 

A sermon for Proper 22
October 9, 2022

“Go and show yourselves to the priest.” Jesus encounters ten lepers today in the borderlands, the no-man’s land between Galilee and Samaria. While Jews and Samaritans do not mix, the lepers live by a different code. When you are completely cast out from society, trodden down, robbed of all dignity, you make friends with whomever is around. These lepers are a mixed group: nine Jews, one Samaritan. 

To be a leper in the time of Jesus was to experience marginalization at a deep level. Lepers were not only those with Hansen’s Disease. In fact, most of them probably didn’t have that. Instead, Leprosy was a catch-all term for skin conditions that the community feared were contagious. These folks were cast out of town, told to stay away from family and friends, put to the margins, until their health condition could be cleared by the priests. Only then would they be welcome back. 

These lepers, in a sense, become exiles in their own homeland. And as exiles, they experience a host of spiritual and emotional challenges, rooted in the agony that stemmed from their complete rejection. Some people still know what that is like. The person living with HIV/AIDS, kept at arms’ length from family. The veteran, homeless because of PTSD, who is never looked at square in the face. The refugee fleeing persecution in Afghanistan, only to be called a terrorist here because of what she wears on her head. The child who wants to play with others so badly, but who can’t because chemicals in their brains make quote-on-quote “normal” socializing impossible to understand. The teenager with involuntary tics. That elder in the wheelchair who can’t get through doors, onto porches, into concert venues. These are the exiles in their homeland, the lepers among us now, those kept at the edge, whether intentionally or not. Their agony is so much greater than just a physical agony. Like those lepers of Jesus’s time, theirs is also a spiritual agony of rejection, of not being seen as bearing the very image of God. 

If you’ve ever been in that kind of spiritual valley, you know that sometimes all you can do is cry. It’s lonely in your struggle. You feel powerless. At times you pray that prayer that Jesus cried from the cross, that ancient prayer from the psalms: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 

All of that is churning in the background for these lepers, out in the borderlands. But it so happens that Jesus walks through the borderlands. Jesus walks into no-man’s land. He goes where others don’t. He sees those whom others ignore. He knows the ones pinned against the wall, stomped on, without hope. He hears them when they cry. He hears us, when we are lost, wandering, unsure of our next step, out of options and out of hope. 

“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” That’s the cry of the lepers, echoing all of those psalms they once heard in the Synagogues before they were kicked out of good society. Jesus hears them. “Go and show yourselves to the priests,” he says. They head out, perhaps confused at first. The condition is still there. But then it’s not. They are healed. And they run to the Temple, and then to their cities, and then to their families, back into their lives. Full of joy. 

But one among them takes a different tack. He’s the only Samaritan. He doesn’t know what the others are doing. After all, when Jesus tells them to go show themselves to the priests, they go in different directions. The Jews head to Jerusalem. The Samaritan heads to Mt. Gerizim, to his own, different, Samaritan priests. He doesn’t know about the other nine, but when he sees what happens, he turns back. He worships Jesus. He sees Jesus for who he is: His savior, his Messiah, God in the flesh. 

Jesus responds to him. “Your faith has made you well,” Literally, Jesus says, your faith has saved you. Jesus is no longer speaking about his medical condition. He’s no longer talking about his cure. He’s talking about something deeper. He’s talking about his soul, his very spirit. You’ve been made well; saved. And then like the nine, he goes on: to his temple, to his city, to his family, to his life. But his life is now radically altered, different. His joy is complete. His soul is healed as well as his body, for he knows the Savior. 

Jesus is telling us through this encounter that there is a deeper healing available to us. We, like those lepers, often pray for cures, physical, mental, and emotional. But Jesus has on offer a deeper, spiritual healing, a salvation for our souls. It makes us complete, for it reconnects us to God. You see, only when we live in God can we be complete, made whole, saved. It all happens through Christ, through our life in him, through our faith in what he has done. And no matter what happens in this life–even when we are on our deathbed–nothing can steal that completeness from our soul. For nothing can separate us from God and God’s love in Christ Jesus. We are healed, made well, complete, saved, for we know the Savior. 

This deeper, spiritual healing happens as we come to a font. We are baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, made a child of God by grace and grace alone, not because of anything we can do, but only because of what Christ has done. But it doesn’t stop there. If it does, we are a little like those nine who were cured and went on their way. No, it can’t stop there. We must return, over and over again, faithfully, to the One who healed us, who saved us in those waters. Occasionally is not enough. We must go to him daily, in daily prayer, in weekly worship, where we receive grace upon grace and our baptismal healing is renewed and strengthened. Thereby we are saved, just like that Samaritan leper. Our souls are transformed. Healed forever. Made well, whole, complete. Nothing can ever take that away from you. 

Since October is stewardship month, here’s the stewardship pitch. It has nothing to do with your money. Stewardship is much more important than that. Our stewardship question is, are we returning to worship God, to thank our Savior, for all he has done, and especially for this greatest gift of salvation? Are we like the nine who go on their merry way, who accept healing but aren’t yet whole, who don’t fully realize the stakes of what is going on? Or are we like the one, who returns with thanksgiving, recognizing the One who has done it, and is thereby made whole, complete, well? 

You don’t have to wait until 2023. Start now. But go ahead and make that pledge for 2023. In the year to come, I’m going to make going to Jesus daily in prayer and weekly in worship a priority. Occasionally is not enough. I’m not only going to go to him when I need something, or when it’s convenient, or when it doesn’t conflict with anything else in my life. I’m going to make going to Jesus, daily in prayer, weekly in worship at a church, my number one priority. 

Because, my friends, when we realize just what Jesus has done for us–when we realize that he has made us well, made our souls complete in God–when we realize that, what else can our reaction be if not worship, if not adoration, if not continual praise? 

God in Christ has arrived in the borderlands of our lives. He has heard our cry. He has seen our pain, our separation, our human condition of sin. And he has made us well through our baptismal participation in his life, death, and resurrection. Our question is: Are we going back to him to worship?  

A sermon for Proper 22
October 2, 2022

“Increase our faith,” the apostles ask Jesus today. It seems strange to me that this group of men would need their faith increased. You and I perhaps, sure. But these men? They have been walking with Jesus, hearing him teach, seeing all sorts of signs and wonders, and yet they still ask, Increase our faith! On my worst days I like to remember this. If faith was sometimes hard for these men, for Peter and James and John and all the rest, then maybe it’s okay if it’s hard for me sometimes. And I can borrow their prayer, “Lord, increase my faith.” But what are we asking for? 

Oftentimes in American Christianity, we treat faith like money. You’ve heard me say that before. We think, if I work hard and get five faith tokens, I can buy that miracle or purchase that gift from God. That is not faith. That’s consumerism, and it’s idolatry. 

So what is faith? Faith and faithfulness are the same word in the Bible. Faith and faithfulness all come down to one thing: trusting in God, no matter what. Faith is all about our relationship with God–that’s why Jesus tells us about a servant and a master today. We have to learn to trust in God over time, as our relationship with God grows and deepens, and as God proves to be faithful to us, time and time again. When we see God show up, no matter what, we learn that we can trust God, that we can lean on God, that we can depend on God’s promises. We learn to have faith, because God is faithful. Even in times of trouble, even in times of despair, God shows up. Our problems may not go away; there may still be pain and struggle; but God is there, smack dab in the middle of it all. 

This is what we read from Lamentations today. From the pits of despair, in deep sadness and tribulation, the writer exclaims, “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” This is something he has learned, something he has come to trust, even in the most unimaginable of times. He has learned that God shows up always, time and time again, no matter where we are at, no matter how far we have sunk. God is there, because God is faithful. To have faith means to trust in that. 

In a way, we’re all like rescue dogs. I remember when we got our dog Fancy. She’s a beagle-boxer mix, and had been wandering through the woods of Tennessee. She had a hole in her ear, probably from a fight. She was starving. When we brought her home, our other dog, Pete, was thrilled, over the moon. He loves other dogs. He ran around her, trying to get her to play. But she growled and snapped back at him. She wasn’t sure what to think of Molly and me, either. But over time, she learned that Pete was her friend. She learned that we were not going to hurt her. She learned that we loved her, that we were faithful to her. In response, she grew in her love and trust for us. She grew in her faith in us—she learned she could depend on us, count on us. 

We’re like that with God. Life breaks us down and hurts us sometimes. When we get wounded, we become just like Fancy, unable to trust anyone but ourselves. But God shows up. Day after day, God is there. And day after day after day, we learn that we can trust God, we can count on God. We can have faith in God, because God is faithful. 

When we pray like the disciples, “Lord, increase our faith,” we are actually praying for a deeper and more real relationship with God. We are praying that God would help our trust deepen and our love grow. We are praying for the grace to remember and know that God always shows up and can be counted on, no matter what, because God is faithful. 

This month marks the beginning of our stewardship drive. We are asking you to pray and consider how you will support this church family in the year 2023 with your time, talent, and treasure. I know most, if not all of you, are used to this. You are all faithful givers, and I am so grateful. 

Your pledge goes to make sure this church continues to be a sign in this community of the love of God in Christ Jesus. Your pledge makes sure that the gospel is preached, that forgiveness is declared to penitent sinners, that the Sacraments are rightly administered, that Jesus Christ is proclaimed, that our neighbors are loved. 

It is easy and tempting to reduce a pledge drive to a financial matter. But I don’t want us to do that. Instead, I want us to think about how turning in a pledge card is a small act of faith. Turning in a pledge card is a way of saying, “I don’t know what the coming year holds, but I’m going to commit myself to supporting the work of God this much every month.” It can be a way of saying, “God has been so faithful to me, so I am going to give back to God some of my blessings as a sign of my faithfulness in return.” It can also be a way of saying, “Lord, increase my faith. I’m going to commit this to you, and I’m going to depend on your promise that you will bless me for this sacrifice, that you will show up for me, that you will show yourself faithful. Through this small act, “Lord, increase my faith” in your goodness, in your love, in your faithfulness.

I promise you: God shows up. God always proves to be faithful. God always blesses us when we sacrifice to support the work of God and the Church in the world. This year, no matter the amount, take that step of faith. And as you turn in that pledge card, you might add that prayer from God, “O Lord, faithful God who always shows up and can be depended on, increase my faith.”

A sermon for Proper 21
September 25, 2022

“You only are immortal, the creator and maker of mankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return. For so did you ordain when you created me, saying, ‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”

These words come from the burial service in our Book of Common Prayer. It is called the Commendation, the part of the service where we put our loved one into the merciful arms of our Savior forever, and we ask that God give them rest. If you, like me, watched some of the Queen’s funeral last Monday, you will have heard very similar words at her funeral at Westminster and at her committal at St. George’s. The Queen, after all, an Anglican was buried according to the liturgy of the Church of England’s Prayer Book, a service not reserved for monarchs alone, but for all of God’s people. Those same words spoken over her mortal body will be spoken over mine, and yours, someday. 

Death and burial bring into stark contrast what really matters in this life. So often we go through life on autopilot, not thinking too seriously about our deaths and the life to come. The death and burial of a loved one give us a moment of reflection. For as the Prayer Book says, “all of us go down to the dust,” we know not when.  

Jesus tells us a parable about death and eternal life today. He invites us to consider what happens to our souls after death, the consequences of our lives right now. Are we preparing for the life yet to come?

There was a rich man and a poor beggar named Lazarus. Of all the parables Jesus told, he only ever names one character: Lazarus. This is an important guy. Lazarus means “God has helped me,” but honestly, that doesn’t seem to be the case in this life. Lazarus lives a life of suffering. He is laid at the gate of the rich man, day after day. He can’t even get there himself; he must be carried. Day after day he is stepped over, ignored. All he wants is a scrap of food. Only the dogs attend him, licking his sores, trying to give him some relief. 

Then we have the rich man. He is no ordinary rich man. He is a very rich man. In Roman society, the rich would wear a white robe with a single thread of purple woven into it. That single thread would show just how rich they were. Purple dye was that expensive. This man, by contrast, wears all purple everyday. This is a Jeff Bezos, an Elon Musk, a Bill Gates. And how does this rich man use his extraordinary wealth, his many blessings? Jesus says he feasts sumptuously everyday. And in all his feasting, Lazarus wasn’t given a scrap. The scraps, we presume, are given to his dogs. 

Wealth wasn’t this man’s problem. Financial resources are a blessing from God, after all. Rather, his sin was living only for himself, greedily hoarding those blessings. 

Death comes for us all, and it came for the rich man and Lazarus. Jesus says, “The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.” The poor man is carried away by angels and the rich man is not. The rich man is buried. But Lazarus, based on what Jesus says, or doesn’t say, is not. Ignored in life, he is ignored in death. But not by the angels of God. And they each go on to their reward. As they do, we see a dramatic reversal. 

Lazarus goes on to the bosom of Abraham, Jesus says. He is comforted. He is at peace. The rich man, who day after day feasted, who wore all purple, who showed off his extravagant wealth by building monuments to himself in this life and never reaching out a hand of compassion, he finds no comfort. From Hades, he sees Lazarus next to Abraham. He recognizes Lazarus. He knows him by name. He proves that he willfully ignored him day after day after day. 

And the rich man repented. He called out to Lazarus, my friend, forgive me. I should have done better–could have done better–by you. I had been given everything in that world, so many blessings from God, and helping you would not have put me in any bind. It would have been easy, but I chose not to. And I was wrong. Please forgive me, dear Lazarus. 

Well, the rich man could have said that. He should have said that. But he doesn’t. It turns out we tend to die the way we live. Even in death, he cannot acknowledge his wrong to Lazarus’s face. He cannot repent because he still sees Lazarus as beneath him. Don’t believe me? Consider that instead of calling out to Lazarus, he calls out to Abraham. Oh great Father Abraham, I am in agony. I need some assistance. Send your lackey, that Lazarus fellow, to help me out. Put him to work for me. He ought to serve me. I am still better than him. But Abraham tells him that’s impossible. There’s a chasm between them. As in life, so also in death. In life there was a gate, a wall, a separation of the rich man’s own making. In death, there is a chasm, also of the rich man’s own making. 

We will die how we live. If we live hoarding, we will die holding on to things that cannot come with us. If we live for ourselves, we will die alone. If we live angry or prideful, we will die full of anger and pride. If we live in fear, we will die in fear. If we live unrepentant, we will die unrepentant. If we live as if we will save ourselves, giving in to the illusion that we are somehow immortal, we will die with no hope. As in life, so also in death.  

We will die how we live. If we live generously, in thanksgiving for all of our blessings, showing the generosity of God to others; we will die generously, thanking God for everything we have and everything we are, and giving those blessings back to the God who gave them to us in the first place. If we live for God and for others, we will die surrounded by angels who will fly us to our rest. If we live in love, we will die in love. If we live peacefully, we will die at peace. If we live repentant, we will die trusting in the mercies and grace of God–as sheep of God’s own fold, lambs of God’s own flock, sinners of God’s own redeeming. 

“All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” Alleluia literally means “God be praised.” We need to start practicing that song of praise right now, or we might not know how to sing it when the time comes. We need to make it our song right now while we are on this earth, for we will die how we live; as in life, so also in death. 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. God be praised! Unlike the songs of this world–the songs to ourselves, the songs to our wills, the songs to our ways, the songs to our power, the self-interested songs that lift us up–this is the song of heaven. It’s the song of saints and angels. This is the song of Lazarus and those who have lived and died in the fear of the Lord. 

We can sing this song in so many ways right now. We sing it right here on Sunday mornings, as our voices join the heavenly chorus already in progress. We sing it daily as we offer prayers to God, lifting up our lives as living sacrifices. We sing this song when we reach out a hand of love, a hand of compassion to someone in need. We sing this song when we call someone who is lonely on the phone, just to check in on them. We sing this song when we give of ourselves and make some sacrifice, whether big or small, in the Name of Christ, seeking to serve Christ in all persons and loving our neighbors as ourselves. 

Alleluia. God be praised! I hope that’s my song right now and as I take my final breath. And I hope it’s your song, too. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. God and God alone be praised, worshiped, and adored, now and forevermore. Amen. 

A sermon for Proper 20
September 18, 2022

“The parable defies any fully satisfactory explanation.” That’s what the footnote to this parable in one of my favorite Bibles says. The parable of the dishonest manager has puzzled generations and generations of Christians. It’s not that we can’t get any message out of it; we can. Rather, it is more that all of our wrestling with this text will bring us up just a little short, and we can’t seem to get to that easy-to-grasp, if challenging, message that the parables are so famous for giving us. 

The truth is, parables can be tricky things. We can sometimes expect parables to be something they’re not. Here’s what I mean: some parables are allegories. They are stories we know and love, where each character of the story corresponds to some spiritual reality. Let’s think of the Prodigal Son. The Father is interpreted to be God. You and I are either the Prodigal or the elder son. We walk away from the parable understanding more about our place in the world, our relationship to God, and our relationship to one another. 

Other parables are closer to old fashioned morality plays–stories with an ethic, a moral, embedded in them. Think about the Good Samaritan. Jesus’s message is clear even to children: treat those in need like the Good Samaritan treated the hurt man on the road. 

But not all parables are like that. Some parables are closer to riddles, or even absurd jokes. They can be harder to understand. Today’s parable of the dishonest manager falls into that category. 

If we try to make this parable into an allegory, we will be frustrated. For any allegory we can come up with is going to be lacking. For example, we could say that the dishonest manager is Jesus, writing off our debts. Our debts to whom? Perhaps to God the Father. There are many problems with this. First, it sets the Father up to be this absentee, vindictive creditor, and we know the Father isn’t like that. And are we saying that the Son must somehow trick the Father into relieving our debt burden? No. Finally–and perhaps most significantly–the problem with this approach is that the manager does not, as the old hymn says, pay it all. No, he only forgives a small portion. But that’s not actually what Jesus does; he forgives it all for us, a debt we could never pay. 

What about one of those morality plays? Again, there are issues here. Is Jesus commending dishonesty? Is Jesus telling us to cheat our employers, to mess with the books, to go ahead and steal those sticky notes and office supplies? I don’t think so. I don’t think Jesus is trying to hold up this manager or employer as some sort of moral exemplar. 

Instead, Jesus is telling a funny story to make a point, a kind of absurd joke. Jesus takes something from his listeners’ everyday lives. He tells a story about an absentee landowner and his crooked manager. Most of the land in Jesus’s time was held by absentee landowners, especially in the backwaters of Galilee. These landowners didn’t care for the tenants, because they were never there to get to know them, and they greedily sought to extract every ounce of value out of the land. These landowners appointed managers, most of them crooked and dishonest. The manager in the parable is certainly that. He has been accused of cooking the books, likely adding exorbitant interest charges on top of the exorbitant fees the landowner already had. It wouldn’t have been hard for the people in Jesus’s time to identify with this story. I can almost hear those people in the crowd saying, “yep, I’ve been there before.” They’ve been cheated by these managers and absentee landowners before. 

Jesus is using these scoundrels to make a point. He uses scoundrels a lot, it turns out. He will tell a parable about a widow and an unjust judge. He will tell a story about tenants who try to take over a vineyard. Jesus isn’t afraid to use villains to make his point. 

So what is it that Jesus is telling his disciples, and us, to do? While this manager is no moral exemplar, we can learn something from him. This dishonest manager has a goal–security. While he is a manager, he is adding on those interest charges, the charges he will later cancel, to make himself some extra money. We can assume he’s good at it. When he is notified he will be let go, he still has that supreme end goal, his security, in mind. So he cooks the books a little more; changes the charges; cancels a menial amount of debt, just enough. Doing this he knows will ingratiate him to members of the community, and they will make sure he is taken care of. 

He is shrewd–that’s what Jesus calls him. That’s what we’re called to be, too. But unlike this dishonest manager, we follow a different Lord and a different code. And unlike the dishonest manager, our end goal cannot be our security. 

Of course, that dishonest manager’s goal is always there as an idol. Security takes the form of many things–money in the bank, the right friends and connections, a solid retirement, a legacy. So much of it comes down to that false god of money, or Mammon, as Jesus says in the Greek text. Whether we have a lot of money or not, we can put it before anything else. We can put our hope for a good life in it. If only I had a little more. If that’s our chorus line, we will never stop. We could be as rich as Elon Musk and want just a little more. If only, if only. If that’s how we approach it, we’ve made wealth, money, into a god. And as Jesus says today, we can’t serve the true God and that false god at the same time. 

Our end goal isn’t security; it can’t be. Our end goal is love. It’s loving God with everything we are; it’s loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. And we can be like that dishonest manager in this way: We can put that goal–love–before anything else. We can sacrifice in order to achieve that goal. We can be aggressive about pursuing that goal, about pursuing love. We can make our love of God and neighbor the first thing we think of in the morning and the last thing we think of at night. We can devote our time, our talent, and yes our treasure, to the pursuit of that goal. We can let love drive us. And we can use everything that happens in our lives, whether good or ill, to advance us step-by-step to that goal of loving God and our neighbor. If we do that shrewdly, like that manager, we will be welcomed into the eternal homes with true treasures: welcomed into the very life of God, whose very essence is Love.

In the end, it comes down to this: What do we really want? What’s our end goal in this life? And what are we willing to do, willing to give up, willing to sacrifice, in order to get there? 

What god are we actually serving?  

A sermon for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 19
September 11, 2022

In our gospel reading from Luke, we hear some parables. But first, Luke sets the scene. It’s important to know who it is Jesus is talking to. Luke writes, “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” So we have two groups around Jesus: sinners on the one hand, and the religious leaders on the other. To put it differently, we have people who admit they do not know God and are coming to Jesus to hear more on the one hand, and we have the starched and pressed religious elite who have everything figured out and show up to church with their Bible verse memorized on the other hand. And those religious leaders, the ones with everything figured out, are grumbling about how cavalier Jesus seems to be with the company he keeps. 

So Jesus tells them three parables, the two we hear today, immediately followed by the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Each parable has the same structure, the same dilemma, and the same celebratory outcome. Jesus is really trying to drive his point home. 

Something or someone has been lost. They’ve been misplaced somehow. This happens in all sorts of ways. The Prodigal leaves home on his own accord, confident he can handle things himself. The sheep innocently runs off, gets lost, and doesn’t know the way back. As for the coin, an accident of some kind happens. It gets rolled off. Something knocks it off. It gets lost because someone else was careless or thoughtless or made a mistake. In the end, it doesn’t matter how they get lost. They are all lost. 

Not only are they lost, but they are missed dearly. That’s the bigger point in the story. The shepherd goes out and searches until he finds that bleating sheep; the woman searches and searches until she finds her coin; the father waits and watches until his Son shows up and greets him on the road at first sight.  Once reunited, there is a party. A big party. Because when something or someone we love is missing and missed dearly, we party when there is reconciliation and reuniting. 

The gospel ends with the interpretation: Jesus says, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” 

Then what happens? How does that original crowd–sinners on the one side, religious leaders on the other–how do they react to what Jesus has said? Luke doesn’t tell us. He leaves it to our imaginations in a sense. 

It is, perhaps, easiest to imagine the reaction of those tax collectors and sinners. They know where they fit in that story. They are the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost Son. Who knows how they ended up being lost. Maybe, like the sheep, it was an accident? They started walking down a path until one day they looked up, and they didn’t know where the fold was. Maybe they got lost like the coin? Someone pushed them, whether purposely or accidentally, off the table and they rolled under the couch, unseen and unheard. Maybe they were like the Son? They made a decision one day, and they left and didn’t look back until things got bad, and they’re trying to find a way out. Those tax collectors and sinners know what it’s like to be lost. And they know what it’s like to be found. After all, here’s Jesus who has come looking for them–calling them, asking them to follow him, searching them out wherever they are. He’s telling them, the forgotten about and the pushed aside and the wandering, that there is grace enough for them and that the God of the Universe loves them and wants to know them! 

Maybe you have been there. Maybe you have been in that low, forgotten place. And maybe you saw the shepherd round the corner. Maybe you saw the woman light that lamp and search. Maybe you saw the father running for you as you crested the hilltop. My friend, you know the grace of God. You’re open to the grace of God. And the thing about being open to the grace of God–it means you’re open to giving grace freely, for you have received it freely. 

But what about those starchy religious leaders? Their reaction is harder to predict, perhaps. They’ve spent their lives doing what they know is right. They’ve never left the sheep fold; they’ve never been pushed off and rolled out of sight; they’ve never packed up and left. At least, as far as they know. They’re the 99, the 9 coins, the older son. They are in their pew Sunday after Sunday. Their Book of Common Prayer is worn and falls open to page 355. They close the hymnal before the hymn ends because they know the last verse. They are the vestry members, the volunteer organizers, the good ones who show up. 

Jesus is holding up a mirror to them. That’s what parables do. Like the elder son, they are grumbling that the prodigal has returned and is welcomed back. He has some rough edges and needs a good bath, and he has really caused some damage. Does he deserve to be here, too, after all he has done? 

Like those ninety-nine sheep, they don’t understand why the shepherd leaves them, the ones who did everything right, to go after the one that always runs off and had it coming anyway. And sure, maybe they didn’t bleat when they saw him sneaking away. Maybe they didn’t try to alert the shepherd when this other fellow was wandering off, but are they their brother’s keeper? Can they be responsible for that? 

Like those nine coins, they were just fine. What value did that tenth coin add in the end, really? Couldn’t he find a different collection to be with? And yes, they saw what happened. They saw when that other coin was rolled off the table and pushed out. Maybe they helped that process along, just a little, by isolating that tenth coin and not letting him be a full member of the collection. But he was expendable–he was a little dinghy anyway. Now they have grown used to being a group of nine, and they are happy just as they are. Reservations for nine are easier to get than reservations for ten. Groups of nine have more of that family feeling than groups of ten. 

Why should the elder son, the ninety-nine sheep, and the nine coins have a party? Why should they celebrate? Foolish sons make stupid decisions. Wandering sheep get lost. Coins that don’t fit in aren’t trying hard enough to belong.  

This second group, they don’t know the grace of God–not really. They’re closed off to the grace of God. And the thing about being closed off to the grace of God–it means you’re closed off to giving grace freely, because how can you give something freely if you haven’t received it already, freely?

All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. He was visiting St. Alban’s, and there might be a potluck or something. They crowded in–male and female, old and young, Republican and Democrat, rich and poor, black and white, straight and gay. The preacher said, “Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” They responded, “Alleluia. Christ is risen.” They stood up when they were supposed to kneel and didn’t know how to cross themselves. “The gifts of God for the people of God,” came the invitation. They came up to the altar, but didn’t know how to hold their hands. Maybe they didn’t even know what was going on. After they went back to their pews and talked about the dove hunt last weekend. And the Pharisees and the scribes, the religious folk who knew what to do, I wonder if they were grumbling. Or maybe they were smiling, and rejoicing, and praising God, because the whole family is here.  

A sermon for Proper 16
August 21, 2022

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you,” so says the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah. God is calling Jeremiah to his vocation, to the life of a prophet, to speak difficult truths and warnings to the people of Judah. Jeremiah speaks at a difficult moment–at a time when everyone wants to close their ears to anything that makes them uncomfortable. It will become a time of great suffering and hardship, as the empire of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem and ultimately destroys it. Solomon’s temple will be gone. Countless lives lost. Much of the people carried off into exile. Jeremiah was chosen for this moment, to be a prophet at this time.

I cannot help but think of that line in the Lord of the Rings. ‘“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”’

It is not surprising that Jeremiah objects. He says, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” Like Moses before the burning bush and all the other prophets, Jeremiah wants to hold back. He wants to take the easier path. It’s a difficult time, Lord. Not only that, but Jeremiah comes from a complicated family history, from a line of priests that was sent away in exile to the boonies a long time ago by King Solomon for a political faux pas. Jeremiah is not only young, but his family is a problem. People know his family name; they remember the shame; they know his secret. How can he possibly speak with any authority, with any power, with any persuasion, at this difficult time? 

God dispenses with Jeremiah’s excuses. Go, God says, and do not be afraid. Because I am with you. When you’re speaking difficult truths to a stubborn king, I am with you. When you’re ridiculed in the streets, I am with you. When you’re thrown to the bottom of a pit and left to die, I am with you. When you’re in a besieged city, I am with you. When everything around you is destroyed, I am with you. When you’re left alone by everyone else, I am with you. I am with you always, for I have appointed you and consecrated you–set you apart for a special purpose. I am with you always, so do not be afraid, Jeremiah. Do not be afraid; look to God for all that you need. 

Today we are baptizing Hannah, and I wonder if we can hear God speaking to her, and to each of us, in these words to the prophet. Hannah, before I formed you in the womb I knew you; and before you were born I consecrated you. Hannah may not be appointed as a prophet to the nations (maybe she will be), but God has already spoken purpose to her soul. This purpose is made evident today as she is brought to the waters of baptism, where she is made a child of God, marked as Christ’s own forever, sealed by the Holy Spirit, set on a path of grace. Her calling–and the calling of each one of us who is baptized into the Body of Christ–is to proclaim Christ in word and deed; to show the goodness and love of God by her life; to live in the Spirit; to walk this path of grace with the help of Jesus and all of us. 

Like Jeremiah, she is called to live this life of God’s love and goodness and peace in a world that so often is filled with violence and hatred and fear. It can be difficult, scary even, to be a beacon in such a place. Jeremiah says, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy. Hannah is only an infant; who is she to turn the tide away from violence to love, away from hatred to goodness, away from fear to peace? Who is any of us to turn the tide? 

Who are we? We are children of the living God, redeemed by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ himself. And this God who has called Hannah, this God who has called each of us, is present here and now to work through us–no matter the odds, no matter the difficulties, come what may. 

So do not be afraid. Do not be afraid, Hannah. Do not be afraid, children of the Most High God. Follow where God leads. Live the life you have been called to live–lives that reflect the character and nature of God. As we will sing in a moment, so I say now: Look to God; do not be afraid. Lift up your voices, the Lord is near! 

We cannot know what God has in store for Hannah–that is true for all of us. But we can teach her, by our words and actions, what it means to trust God and not be afraid. We can show her, by our words and actions, what it means to follow where God leads, come what may, and to know that we are never forsaken, never abandoned, always loved. We can encourage her to live her life in a way that proclaims the love and goodness and peace of our great God who has given everything for us, and to walk that path of grace, however imperfectly, knowing that Jesus is walking right beside her. It’s our job to do those things for her as the Body of Christ. 

This past week the renowned theologian, author, and Presbyterian minister, Frederick Buechner, died. I want to leave us with his words, words that speak to Hannah today and, I hope, to all of us in our Christian journeys: 

Hannah, “Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you. There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.”

A sermon for Proper 15
August 14, 2022

Like last week, our reading from Hebrews is all about faith. I think faith is one of the most misunderstood concepts in Christianity. That’s a problem. When we see faith wrong, it will ultimately lead us to see God wrong. We call that idolatry. 

Sometimes we can see faith as tokens we have because we’re really good boys and girls and try really hard. Put our five tokens of faith in the God-machine and get out a blessing. Not only is that the wrong way of seeing faith, but it’s the wrong way of seeing God. We end up worshiping a vending machine that is supposed to work for us! 

Instead, faith is rooted in a trusting relationship with God. Faith must be rooted in understanding who God is–our creator, our master, our friend. We dare to put it all in God’s hands, come what may. We trust that God’s got us, that God’s holding us, that God loves us, that God is bringing us home. We trust, even when things are bad or go a way we don’t like. That’s faith. 

Another way we get faith wrong is we think it’s an individual endeavor. We think faith is all about me, about what I think, about how I can impact what’s going on around me. We make religion all about me, me, me. 

But here’s the thing: religion, the word, means to bind together. True religion, or we might say true faith, is about binding us to God and to one another. We cannot be Christians on our own. Obviously we need to be yoked to Jesus. But we also need to be yoked to one another, bound together on this journey. Bound together, not just to people we like or who are like us, but bound together to the whole Body of Christ.  

In addition to the Body of Christ around us right now, Hebrews reminds us that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, by those faithful who have gone before us. The saints. People like Abraham, Isaiah, Jeremiah. People like John the Baptist, James, and Mary. People like our grandparents who prayed with us; our parents who dragged us to church; all of those whom we love but see no longer. The great cloud that is supporting us in ways we cannot fully understand. 

The Christian life is a marathon. Hebrews today calls it a race that is set before us. If we’re going to finish this race, we need to lay aside those things that are slowing us down–the sin that clings so closely. We need to lay aside the ways we try to manipulate God, the ways we think this faith thing is all about us and what we can do by our own strength. And then we need to put on the true yoke of faith that binds us to Christ and to one another. 

We run this marathon together. We run it imperfectly, but Christ helps us along the way, and we help one another. We don’t give up, because it doesn’t all depend on us. And if we persevere, with the help of Christ and that great cloud of witnesses, we will make it. In the end, maybe that’s the best image of true faith.