Fr. Tim’s sermon from December 16th, 2018

Published on by Tina Shippey Category: Epistle, Sermon

Zephaniah 3:14-20
Canticle 9, the First Song of Isaiah (Isaiah 12:2-6)
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18

Click here to access these readings.

        It’s a good day today for lighting our pink candle, isn’t it?  This morning, Helene and I bundled up the kids and ourselves and set ourselves for a cold and blistery morning, but when we got outside it felt like spring.  It’s still the usual December dim, and the sky is blue with rain, but it’s warm and windy.  It’s the perfect day to think about our pink Advent candle set amidst all the dark purple of the rest of the wreath.

        For the color pink is a symbol of joy, hope, and expectation.  There’s just one other pink day in the church year, do you know when?  It’s in Lent, and it’s also towards the middle-end of the season.  Again, it’s a single day of pink set deep within a penitential season.  Twice a year we are asked to think about this joy in darkness.  It says, I believe, something very important about joy and something very important about sorrow.  It says that, no matter how much sorrow we experience in life, no matter how much hardship, we should not forget the joy of Christ.  Christ is the light in the darkness, which no darkness may overcome. 

        But what do we mean by “joy”?  What is this joy of the pink candle, the joy of the light of Christ.  In Philippians, St. Paul says that we should rejoice in the Lord always, so does this mean we always have to be happy?  Now, I’m a pretty optimistic, happy guy, but I would be completely exhausted if I had to be happy all the time.  Back in high school, I used to have a pair of yellow sunglasses that I called “Happy Glasses.”  They made everything bright and yellow and spring-like, even on grey days, and they always cheered me up.  But after I wore them a while, I had to take them off and see the world for what it is.  Some days, grey weather suits the mood just fine.  Some days, it is good to rest.  Some days, it is okay to be sad.  Not every day is a roller-coaster, Paul.

        But I don’t think being happy all the time is what Paul’s getting at when he says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  Joy isn’t only about being happy or excited all the time.  It certainly can be, but joy can also be quiet, it can be peaceful, and it is always healing.  A perhaps silly example is when I went on a trip to Hawaii.  I had been living in Japan for a year or so then, and my parents wanted to see me.  We decided to meet up at the halfway point between Japan and New Jersey, which is Hawaii.  Now, my plane got to Honolulu in the morning, and my family wasn’t due to land until the afternoon, so I went exploring.  Or, rather, I went in search of a place to have breakfast, because I was starving. 

        It was, though, pretty early, and the only store open was a TGI Fridays that was serving breakfast.  And, now, let me say, I love Japanese food, but there’s nothing like a good American breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and eggs.  The Japanese don’t really do eggs and bacon; their traditional breakfast is rice, fish, and miso soup.  And while I kinda like that as a meal, my inner American was demanding some pancakes, so I ordered the works.  And it was so delicious.  Everything was perfect – it was exactly what I had hoped for.  And it was really so good that I started crying.  And the waitress came up and asked in a hurry, “Oh, dear are you alright?”  And I just nodded and said, “It’s just so good.”

        C.S. Lewis, our great Anglican writer of the 20th century, wrote a lot on Joy.  For him, “Joy” was the part of a thing or an experience that led the heart to God.  Lewis found “Joy” in his community of friends, in a pint of beer and a pipe, but also in walking in the British countryside.  And perhaps one of his greatest joys (if I can speak for him) was that, after remaining a bachelor for most of his life, he married a woman whose name was Joy.  And Joy taught him more about the goodness and grace of God than he could have ever imagined.  Lewis found joy, and found God, in good things like laughing with his friends and calm, peaceful moments with his wife.

        Did I find God in that breakfast in Honolulu.  In a way, I did.  Those weren’t just eggs and bacon that I ate.  It wasn’t just a tall glass of orange juice.  It was home.  It was a breath of air that I knew to my bones.  It was soil that I had been planted in as a child.  You probably know the feeling after getting home from vacation.  No matter how good the vacation was, there’s something glorious in stepping back into your own home, washing off the dirt of travel, and sleeping in your own bed.  And this goodness that I’m talking about – of eggs and bacon, of laughing with friends, and of CS Lewis finding a wife late in life – this stuff isn’t just good because it is comforting or feels homey.  It’s good because it all reminds us that we have a True Home, one that will never fade, and that is with God in Heaven.  By enjoying those eggs, I was looking to God.

        Am I going to far here?  Am I just exaggerating.  I mean, they’re just bacon and eggs, right?  It’s just laughing with some buddies, right?  Yes, but we also say, every Sunday morning, that something as simple as bread and wine can be the very Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  When Paul says “Rejoice in the Lord, always, again I will say, Rejoice” he doesn’t want you to just leap up and laugh and play.  He wants you to see that God is present in all the different parts of human life, in both laughter and in tears.  He wants you to look at your eggs (or whatever folks ate for breakfast in his day) and say, in this I can learn of the love of God.  He wants you to look to your brother and your mother, your friends, your church, and your community and see God standing with and among them.  Paul wants you to have Christ so firmly planted in your heart that when you see the rising of the Sun, you smile and see the rising of Christ; or that when the Sun sets you see the rest that God gives us every day.  Or that when we do something so simple as reach out, shake someone’s hand, and say to them “Peace of the Lord” we are giving to them the gift of Heaven. 

        Back in 2015, when Gwendolyn was born, a friend in seminary gave me a small book of meditations about parenthood.  That time was exhausting, I remember, trying to figure out how to be a father, how to change diapers, and how to support Helene.  In those first few weeks, there were nights when I don’t think either of us slept.  But in this book, I remember one meditation that talked about the grace of simply holding a child.  This small act, just sitting still with a sleeping child – my sleeping child – this alone was a grace, this alone was the love of God right here in my life. 

        This, for me, was a deep, deep joy.  Some of you may share similar memories.  Or for some of you, your joy may be louder, more exuberant.  Your joy might be in a stadium in Eugene or Corvalis.  Your joy might be listening to music in the car with the windows down.  Your joy may be in the past, and your joy may be in the future.  But whatever the case, Paul reminds us, rejoice in it.  Those things you love, those things you love with a full and open heart, God is in them, for God is love.  And so, says Paul, rejoice and give thanks, for the Lord is in our lives even now, filling our hearts and lifting them up to the Lord.  May we praise God for ever and for ever more.

Fr. Tim’s Sermon for December 9th, 2018

Published on by Tina Shippey Category: New Testament, Sermon

Malachi 3:1-4
Canticle 16 (Luke 1:68-79)
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6

Click here to access these readings.

        Goodness gracious, Luke.  I didn’t know this was going to be a history test!  What’s with all these names?  “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius (oh, which one was that), when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea (oh, good, I know him; he’s the guy with Jesus at the end), and Herod was ruler of Galilee (I know him, too; he’s the guy who kills John the Baptist, right?), and his brother Philip (who?) ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis (wait, where?) and Lysanias ruler of Abilene (huh?), during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas (I think I remember that last guy), the word of the God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”  That’s.  a.  mouthful.  I had to look up half of these names to figure out how to pronounce them.  And if John hears the word of God in the wilderness, what does all this stuff about kings and emperors and rulers who have been dead two thousand years have to do with anything?  Why does Luke care, and why does he think we should care about who ruled what when?

        Well, let’s try this.  Instead of talking about biblical times, let’s do Luke’s thing in our own time.  So: “In the second year of the presidency of Ronald Reagan, in the year when the film E.T. – the Extra Terrestrial was wowing audiences, when Michael Jackson released his hit album, Thriller, when John Belushi died of a drug overdose, when stamps cost 20 cents and a movie ticket about three dollars, and in the year when the first artificial heart was implanted in a human, your vicar Timothy Hannon was born.”  Fwew.  Did you get all those references?  Now, I could easily have said, “I was born in 1982”, and this would have given you all the information you needed about how old I am.  But that would have been just a number, and a number isn’t what’s important about a person.  I hope that when I was describing the things that happened in the year I was born, you heard a little voice say, “E.T. phone home”, or you saw in your mind Michael Jackson doing the moon walk, or thought of the Blues Brothers, or thanked God, perhaps, that we have such medicine as artificial hearts.  I hope you experienced that, and more, in one sweeping image.  That’s the world I was born into, and knowing that world helps you learn just a little bit more about me.

        This is what Luke wants us to experience as well.  And while we might not know who Herod’s brother Philip was, and while we might not be moved in the same way by the name Lysanias of Abilene as we might be the name Ronald Reagan, I think we can still see what Luke wants us to see: the gospels are no fiction.  This all happened in history, and Luke wants his audience back in the first century to remember what it was like living under Pontius Pilate, or of the stories their parents and grandparents used to tell about Herod.  And John the Baptist and Jesus Christ, Peter and Judas and the rest of the apostles, they did not walk around in some never-never land.  As my high school chemistry teacher used to say, “This ain’t no play-like.”  No.  This is real.  John called on folks to repent beneath the same sun we sitting under today; and Jesus went to get baptized in the river Jordan, that same river that, if you don’t mind a long plane trip and have the money, you yourself can go and see and swim in.  And, to skip ahead to the end of the story, Jesus was crucified on a real hill outside a real city.  This stuff is real, and it really happened, and that’s one of the reasons it’s all so important.

        Now, I preach often about the “realness” of Jesus Christ.  I think it’s important that we remember, and remember often, that Jesus Christ was a living, breathing human being.  He had hands, he sat by the fire and listened to stories, he slept and sneezed, laughed and cried.  Remembering this teaches our heart that God is not some far distant entity, sitting alone in some heaven that we can’t even hope to reach.  God became a human being to bring a message of love and hope and peace.  And when Luke rattles off the names of six rules like it’s nothing, he’s trying to remind us of just this fact.

        But there’s another sort of realness that Luke’s trying to remind us about.  It’s the realness of the world.  Now, in the Bible, oftentimes “the world” is the bad guy.  We Christians are called to live apart from the world, to step away from the ways normal people live and accept a higher and more godly calling.  We Christians are meant to be counter-cultural, and not in the way that we all should be hippies or something, but that we are called to be guided by something much different from what our cultures say is good and right to do.  St. John, in his gospel, reminds us that we should only have one father, one single person who we follow, and that is our father in heaven.  We Christians follow a higher law.

        But, that said, we Christians are called at the same time to work within the world.  The world is real, and it is a place where we may – and often do – encounter God.  For God is everywhere, everywhere trying to push his way in to fill the world with a greater light.  One of professors at seminary used to tell us this, half joking, when she said that we need to develop a theology of administrative work.”  We all laughed, but she was series.  She said, “When you become priests, you’ll be called to fill out schedules; to record attendance for annual reports; to answer the phone; to chair meetings; and to call the repairman.  You might think all this is all just extra stuff, but that leaves God out of so much of your work.  Being a priest isn’t only about the deep, spiritual stuff; you will do all the boring, little things around a parish.  Find God in all aspects of your work, and you will forever be gracious and loving.” 

The Rev. Dr. Patti Hale up in Springfield taught me this one day.  Back while I was discerning a call to the priesthood, I was shadowing her to see what it was like being a priest.  And, one day, I pulled up to St. Matthew’s and there she was, out in the front of the church, pulling weeds from the garden.  “This is also the work of a priest,” she said, wiping her brow.  “Because God’s in the dirt, too.”

        At the end of every service, the deacon always says (and since we have no deacon, I say it) what’s called the dismissal.  “Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord” or “Go forth, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit.”  And what this means is, “Go, and lift the world to God with love.”  Because, goodness gracious, the world needs it.  Pain and suffering are real, and people – real people – live lives in lonely despair without hope.  And St. Luke reminds us, St. Luke together with all of the Bible, that it was to this world where darkness and despair are real that God came to do the work of salvation.  And so we are called to do the same.  We are called to be a light to the world, to remind a grieving world that goodness and love and hope are not just nice things to think about when the weather’s fair, but that they are the foundation of true reality. 

        So go into the world, and rejoice in the power of the Lord, for you are all torchbearers for God.

Fr. Tim’s Sermon for December 2nd, 2018

Published on by Tina Shippey Category: Sermon

Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25:1-9
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36

Click here to access these readings.

[sarcastically]

I would wish you all a Happy Advent, but, well, I can’t. It’s Advent and, in Advent, we’re not allowed to be happy. We’re not allowed to laugh, and we’re not allowed to even smile. Advent’s a penitential time, and that means it’s a time when we’re all supposed to act really sad and think about all the horrible things we’ve done. Lisa and I have picked out some really depressing music, too. In seminary, I took a class called “How to make sure your congregation is penitent during Advent and Lent.” It wasn’t a very fun class, but that’s how it’s supposed to be.

[in a normal voice, now]

       Now, when I was teaching, my students said that I have a very straight face when I’m being silly, so I should stop right now and tell you: I’m joking. Yes, it’s Advent, but you can joke. Yes, it’s a penitential season, but you can smile and have fun. Yes, we’re all dressed up in purple and things are a bit dimmer with rainy weather and all, and our liturgy will be a bit more contemplative, but that doesn’t mean we have to be sad and mopey.

Advent, just like Lent, is a penitential season. That is indeed why the vestures and hangings are purple. And that is why the readings today, and those for the rest of Advent, have a somewhat somber tone. And that’s all well and good, but I think when we hear the word “penitential” we often think of doing “penance”: and doing penance is never fun. Penance, we think, is what you do after you sin to make up for all the bad stuff. The old image of the sacrament of Confession is when a person tells the priest all their sins (through this little window in a tiny, dark confessional), and the priest says, “Ahh, yes, well; that was very naughty, so say fifteen Our Fathers and forty Hail Mary’s and call me in the morning.” I once read an account of medieval penance, where, if a priest dropped the sanctified host on the floor, he’d have to clear out the church and kneel on the hard, cold, stone floor for the rest of the day, praying the psalms. Penance, we often think, is what you do to hurt yourself into doing the right thing, to give you such a bad memory of the repercussions that you don’t do it again. And, I’d like to say, even though I love the medieval period, I think it’s a pretty good thing that we’re not that sort of penitential anymore.

And yet, even still, we are called to penance during this time of Advent. But what is good penance, then? I could give you the dictionary definition, but I’d rather tell you about growing up in rural New Jersey at my parents’ house in the woods. You see, in the house, there was a room that we called the “living room”, though we rarely went in there. When we gathered as a family, we did it around the kitchen table, or on the couch in another room, or our own rooms where we kept our toys. The living room was for special occasions. There was a big table on one side that could fit 10 people, and on the other were couches which, I remember, I was definitely not allowed to jump on. There were also two great wardrobes, and one filled with an old set of Shakespeare and Dickens; and on one of the end tables, there was an old washing basin that rattled whenever you went past, even if you snuck by. The walls in this room were painted white, but all the rest was dark: dark wooden floors and dark moulding. There was also a great hearth that was so big that I could still fit inside it, even now, and, standing heavy above it, a long, dark, thick mantelpiece.

This room, the “living room”, was where we had Thanksgiving dinner. As a child, I remember walking around between all the tall adults, wondering what in the world they were talking about, smelling the delicious food before I saw it, and sitting at that great table with people I only saw once or twice a year. It was warm, and the food was filling, and there was joy in the air. It was Thanksgiving.

But then Thanksgiving would be over. My birthday would pass, and it would be Advent. The house was decorated, and we listened to Christmas music, and everything was very festive, but…something changed in the air from Thanksgiving. It was colder. All the trees in the forest had lost their leaves. The grass was dim, and there was a feeling in the air that it might snow, but not yet, not yet. And the sky was white, and the trees are dark brown, just like the white walls and dark woodwork of the living room. And even with the Christmas music on, there seemed a quietness to the house that was of no one’s making. All was still and patient and waiting.

And when December 1st came, we would start our Advent calendar. This was a felt hanging with pockets that we put on the door just before the living room. And on it were little scenes of Santa Claus preparing for Christmas. In one, he was wrapping gifts; in another he was decorating a tree. In one he was pushing his car that had got a flat tire (this one always confused me; why was Santa driving a car?) And in each, he was alone: just him and the small chores of the season. Now, in each pocket was a little chocolate treat that my sister and I would get if we finished our dinner. But there were only twenty-four pockets, not twenty-five, so that Christmas seemed like a whole other world, a new reality just beyond the edge of sight.

These were just some of the traditions we had as a family while growing up. And, now that I’m older, I see that there was a sort of penance in all of it. There was a penance in waiting, of keeping that living room free of normal, everyday life, of keeping it sort of holy. There was a penance in those white walls and deep, dark fireplace that mirrored the trees outside, swaying in the chill air against a cloudy sky. There was a penance in that Advent calendar, even though each day I got chocolate from it. There was a penance in watching Santa go through the month, day by day, keeping time, alone, with decorations and preparations; and there was a penance in the wonder of realizing, even so young, that when Christmas came, the world really would be different – and not because I’d have new toys to play with, but because the world itself would remember – it would feel the reverberations of that day two thousand years ago when everything did change.

And what is this penance? What is this penance that Advent calls us to? It is life. It is a penance written deep into the world and into our lives. It is a penance of reflection, of allowing the old things in our lives that are dead and dying to fall away, as the trees lose their leaves, at first one by one, then all at once. It is a penance of prayer that doesn’t bite or pinch, but that sits down with you at a great fireplace below a thick mantle, and sips coffee or tea with you, while you and God slowly take stock of the world. It is a penance that first is empty, that clears and cleans and lets fall away, and remains that way, so that we may breathe the crisp air. And in the end, that emptiness will be filled: by God. Those silent times before the slowly crackling blaze will become the joy and laughter of rebirth and new life in Christmas and Epiphany. And those bare trees will, one day, bear leaves and fruit again. But not yet. Not yet, for first we must sit with the world in her darkness and wait for that day that is on no calendar, when the Lord will come again.

So let us end together, and read in unison the collect for today: Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Fr. Tim’s Sermon for November 18th, 2018

Published on by Tina Shippey Category: Epistle, New Testament, Old Testament, Psalm, Sermon

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Psalm 93
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37

Click here to access these readings.

Today is the last Sunday of Pentecost.  And while it’s the last day of the long season of green, and your bulletin inserts have the same green header as we’ve had since spring, and it says “Last Pentecost” on the top – you’ll notice that our color today is white.  That’s because today is the feast of “Christ the King Sunday.”  This feast is celebrated on the last day of Pentecost, whenever that day falls.  It’s a pretty recent addition to the church year; Roman Catholics started the feast in 1925, and we Anglicans (along with Lutherans and some other Protestants) only adopted it in the 70s.  And while it’s a young feast, I think it’s an important one; it asks us to pause and to think about what kings are.

        They’re all over the Bible, and Jesus is the King of Kings, but in our world today, we don’t see many kings.  There are the royals in Britain – Queen Elizabeth II, William and Kate, and the rest.  And while Queen Elizabeth is certainly a queen and in line with all other kings of Britain before her, she doesn’t have much political power.  Then, there are medieval kings we might see in movies or read about in books.  These kings are powerful, have an iron grip on their kingdom, and often do so with an iron fist.  But, in truth (I’m sorry to ruin it), most of the kings we see in movies are more fantasy and romance than reality.  People didn’t run around in full armor all the time.

        Kings are pretty distant to us Americans.  And that is, in a large part, because we threw out our king in the Revolutionary War.  The colonists were being oppressed with heavy taxation by a king who lived a whole lifetime away across the Atlantic Ocean.  Colonists wanted to rule themselves, to have a country of the people, by the people, and for the people.  They wanted to make their own choices when it came to their government, and so they revolted and founded what we now know as the United States.  Thinking of our history, we might rightly wonder whether we need a king at all, even in religion.  Perhaps, we might say, kings were just a good metaphor in Jesus’s time, but now, for us, who know better than to have kings, we should find different metaphor.  Maybe like “Christ the President” or “Christ the Head Hancho” or “Christ the guy in charge.”

        But we have to be cautious, of course, of getting rid of things in the past because they might not speak to us in our modern day.  There are times when turning away from the past is important, both in our communal life and our personal lives.  There are some things that we should, certainly, put behind us and forget about.  Our government does this with diplomacy: although we fought a war against Great Britain, we’ve put that past behind us so we can work for the good of one another and of the world.  Our churches do this too: Anglicans used to really not like Roman Catholics (this is an understatement, to be sure!), but two Sundays ago, we not only gathered together at Holy Name Catholic Church, but with all the other churches in Coquille for an ecumenical service.  We put our past fights behind us so that we could glorify God in some semblance of what the Church should be.

        But there are many things in the past that we shouldn’t forget: things like veterans and the wars they fought in, or difficult times in our country’s history like the Civil Rights movement.  And we remember them not just to lightly smile at and pat ourselves on the back that things are perhaps better now.  No, we remember because in these moments our country and we ourselves learned something and grew.  We gained wisdom in going through those difficult times, and it is good to look back and revisit that wisdom.  Often we’ve forgotten it.

        So, enough of an old history buff’s lesson on why we should love history.  What about this kingship thing?  Why do we still refer to Christ as King?  Why do we talk about Christ’s kingdom instead of use some other image or metaphor?

          We have to remember, though, that when we balk at the idea of a king, when we hear “king” and translate it in our heads to “tyrant”, we’re not alone.  The people of Jesus’s day had seen their fair share of tyrants.  The Jewish people, throughout their whole history from their first king Saul down to the emperor in Rome, had know what it was like to be under the thumb of a tyrant.  This is why, for some, the Messiah was supposed to be a great military leader who came and destroyed all the tyrants.  The Messiah was supposed to come in power and might, and when they looked at Jesus, they probably laughed and said, “Yeah, like this guy can stand up to Rome.  Where’s the real Messiah?”  And they said this not because they had a fanciful image of kings but because they had seen so many kings mess up. 

        So when you think of kings, and of Christ as our king, I want you to think of this image: when we were kids, my neighborhood friends and I used to play a lot of baseball.  We played in my friend’s backyard, and this friend had a dog named Tess.  Now Tess was a sheep-dog, not by training but by breeding.  I don’t think Tess ever saw a sheep in her life, but herding sheep was in her bones.  So, instead of white fluffy animals, she had us kids to tend.  And whenever we played baseball, she would run around the whole field, circling us, nonstop.  The poor dog never stopped running.  And when we hit a ball out of the field, be it into a neighbor’s yard or into the woods, and someone had to go and get it, Tess would follow us and bite at our feet.  She’d shove and push and bite us until we got back into the field with the ball.  Then she’d run around and around us again.

        Now as kids, we thought this was annoying.  Tess would mess up our shoes and, often, really hurt us when she bit us.  But what was she doing?  She was protecting us, she thought, from wolves.  For shepherds, like sheep dogs, are there to protect their sheep, to guide them through difficult terrain, to go out and seek those who are lost and alone.  And a king isn’t supposed to do this just for sheep, but for his people: to guide them through tough times, to teach them and nurture them, and every once in a while give them a firm look to let them know they’re serious.

        And isn’t this what Christ does for us?  We who are so scattered and wayward, hasn’t Christ gone out into the wild of the world and gathered us all together, too?  Hasn’t Christ brought us out of the hazardous lands of Sin and Death and given us New Life in his flock that we call the Church?  And doesn’t Christ continue to teach and to guide us, to run around us like a sheep dog, to protect us; and, when we err, to come and seek us out so that we may rejoin his people? 

        And for these reasons, and many many others, we give him honor and praise and our loyalty.  We turn to Christ not because he commands authority like some tyrant, but because to him, and to him alone, should we train our hearts.  Christ is a king, though a king that is also a shepherd, a sheepdog, a lamb, a Son, and a brother.  Christ is the king of our lives, of our journey in this world, of our relationships and our communities, of our hearts, and of all our deepest loves.  In all things we turn to Christ who gives us the rule of faith.  And his throne is the cross.  And his decrees are love and hope and joy in God.  And his kingdom is life, life everlasting.

        Christ is a king – no other metaphors will do.  For in God’s kingdom are all our hopes.  In God’s hands is all our love, in a great world of joy that has no end.

Fr. Tim’s Sermon for 18 November 2018

Published on by Tina Shippey Category: Epistle, Old Testament, Psalm, Sermon, Uncategorized

Painting by Jeff Watkins

Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm 16
Hebrews 10:11-25
Mark 13:1-8

Click here to access these readings.

            We are, at last, in the final weeks of the season of Pentecost.  We have only this week and next week, and next week is something special.  This week is the last “normal”, green week of Pentecost.  Soon we’ll be in the thick of purple for Advent.  We’ll switch from reading the gospel of Mark each week and start reading the gospel of Luke.  Then it will be the Christmas, then Epiphany, Lent, and Easter: those seasons where we live with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  But for now, the season of Pentecost, which is the season of the Church, is almost over.

            I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but our readings over the past few weeks have been settling into this feeling of “being over.”  We’ve been hearing the promises of the Old Testament and of Revelation, of some great End that may come with grief and anguish, but which will lead to a new beginning.  We read in Hebrews this week of a change, how priests used to sacrifice every day for the people, now have given away to Christ, whose sacrifice is once and for all.  The need for sacrifices is over, for Christ died on the Cross and Rose again.  And this sense of “ending”, of “being over”, is mirrored in the seasons of the world, so that as the days get darker and the year draws to an end, we read from the Bible of anticipation, of waiting, and of things that are finished. 

            We Christians are a people of ends, but also of new beginnings.  We are called to die to our sins daily, to reflect on how we have lived in the past, and to bear our own cross.  Yet we are also called to new life in Christ.  We are called to nurture the seeds of God within us, to pray in the Spirit, and to live lives of fullness and hope and love.  We are to die, and we are to be reborn.  And through these deaths and resurrections in our lives, which we experience each and every day, we are led deeper into the life of God in Jesus Christ.  This is the Christian life.  Our prayers nurture the Spirit within us; in the Sacraments we meet and are healed by God; and we encourage one another, in the Spirit, to a life of ministry to the sick, the lonely, and the needy of the world.  And although we still sin, and sin daily, our Christian lives lead us closer and closer to God, until that last day and that final death, when Death and Sin are at last left behind and we enter into the fullness of God.

            But not yet.  We live in an odd sort of paradox, we Christians.  Death and Sin are defeated, but we are still affected by them.  As the author of the letter to the Hebrews writes, “Christ offered himself for our sins once, in a single sacrifice, for all time.”  And yet, even with Sin and Death defeated, even with Christ’s great victory, we still sin.  To put it another way, we Christians are an “already, but not yet” people.  We are already forgiven, but we are not yet in the fullness of God.  Christ has died for our sins, but we not yet free of the muck and the shadows of this world.  We are an “already, but not yet” people.

            I think we kinda get what this means in our daily life.  Think of Christmas Eve: one of the great joys of being a parent is setting up on Christmas Eve.  The gifts are out, the stockings filled, the decorations tidy and finished.  Tomorrow will be Christmas, and all the gifts will be opening, and there will be joy and family and laughing, but tonight, on Christmas Eve, there is silence and stillness.  The whole house is set up, ready for the kids, but not yet, not until the morning.  Already, but not yet.

Or, here’s another image.  A friend of mine recently posted on facebook a video of a plant growing.  All the dirt was pushed up against a glass, and the seed, too, so you could see each moment.  The video was in fast-forward, so you could watch as the roots stretch out into the rich soil, first one, then another, then one would split and both would reach outwards.  Then the seed broke fully and the plant rose above the soil.  Two little leaves sprung out and wobbled as they grew larger and larger.  And at each moment, the seed was growing, and it’s growth was alive and fully, but it wasn’t yet an adult plant, not until that last moment of the video.  It was already alive, but not yet fully itself.  And my friend’s comment on the video was that this seemed like a good image to have stored away somewhere in the depth of one’s being.

            These images, I think, do a decent job of describing the idea of “already, but not yet.”  But there’s another that works better, and that’s marriage.  Helene and I were married in 2010 at a really beautiful ceremony out on the Jersey coast.  The wedding itself was right on the beach, facing inland, out under the sky, and all our favorite people were there.  It was a truly beautiful day.  Helene and I said our vows, we exchanged rings, the pastor blessed the union, and we were, in all ways, “married.”  We even had this nice, complicated document from the county to prove it.  And I thought, cool, I’m married now.  I’m a husband.  Helene is my wife.  We are “married.”

            And so we were.  We were husband and wife that summer day in 2010 on the shores of New Jersey.  But marriage both is and isn’t a one time thing.  Marriage isn’t something you do and are done with, like opening a present, or baking a pie, or tying your shoes.  Marriage is something you live into.  Marriage is a life that challenges us, tests us, encourages us, and leads us into deeper and deeper parts of ourselves, our spouses, and, truly, God.  I am married because I said “I do” to Helene (and she said it back) in a ceremony by the shore, but each day I am growing and being grown in this marriage, so that, each day, I feel more and more “married.”  And, I hope, I will continue to grow in our marriage until the day I die.  Will I ever be “fully” married?  Will there ever come a day when I say, “Okay, I got this.  Helene and I are perfect and our lives together are perfect.  I’m finished.  Time to put my feet up and reap the benefits of perfection.”  No, there won’t be.  Even with this ring, even with the words “I do,” we still have room to grow together.  Already, but not yet. 

            This is an image of the Christian life.  Like all the other sacraments, marriage is an image of our relationship with God.  Christ died for our sins, once and for all, and he defeated death, once and for all – but we Christians must live into that reality.  Christ has given us a most precious gift, but we must not only unwrap it but use it, live it, and grow with it.  As I said, this is the same for all the sacraments.  In Baptism, we are joined with God in a bond that can never be broken, but even still, we must live into that baptism and allow it to nurture and grow us into Children of God.  This is why we take the Eucharist each and every week.  This is why we gather together as a Church, and this is why we not only love one another but seek to nurture Christ in each and every person we meet.  The work of Christ is not finished and accomplished, once and for all, so that it can be done for us, like finding some kid in school who will do your homework for a dollar, or hiring someone to clean your house so you can relax when you get home. 

The work of Christ was complete, and it was fully complete, but we small little people need to enter into that fullness, to grow within it, like a little sapling in the rain and sunshine.  Christ gave us a gift, and that gift is a life lived, more and more fully, to God.