January 7, Baptism of Christ

Kristin White

Mark 1:4-11

The Jordan River is muddy.

I don’t think I would drink that water, and I tell you that I would not lower a baby down into it.

There’s a divider down the center of the river, in the place where I visited, on pilgrimage, at about this time last year. It’s one of those ropes with the little floaty things on it, like the ones that get used to divide the lanes in swimming pools so that people can swim laps without crashing into each other.

Except our guide pointed out to our group that the rope in the middle of that river was not about designated swimming areas in the Jordan. It is an international border. In a conversation that I would have with him a few minutes later, he showed me the Jordanian soldier who stood guard under a shelter on the other side of the river, with a machine gun slung over his shoulder. And then he nodded his head at that soldier’s Israeli counterpart, who stood on the hillside just behind us, also holding the requisite automatic weapon.

There’s a church on the Jordanian side of the river, pretty close to the water. It has a bell tower with bells that chime on the hour. And there are doves living up in that bell tower – no doubt well-fed doves, the cynical side of me supposed – there to further heighten the spiritual experience of so many pilgrims coming to that space to remember the baptism of Jesus.

My own experience on that day was like much of what happened throughout our group’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land last year. Our schedule was regularly shifting, based on delays or availability or traffic or security. We had hurried to make it to this baptismal site before it closed at the end of the day, quickly proceeded through a short liturgy that included a reading of scripture – the baptism of Christ, which had happened right there, or someplace near there, but scholars at least agree that it happened. We prayed for the renewal of our own baptismal promises. And then we divvied up into two groups, to be anointed with holy oil by one of the two bishops helping to lead us.

There were groups of people wearing white robes over their swimsuits as they went down into the Jordan to be baptized. I remember loudspeakers and tightly timed aspects, and still those soldiers with their machine guns, and an overall aspect of: “hurry up, have your spiritual experience, stick your feet into the Jordan if you’d like, buy your souvenir, and then let’s get back onto the bus for the next stop because it’s time to go.”

Somewhere in there, though, one of those well-fed doves flew out over the water.

And suddenly it wasn’t all that difficult for me to imagine John the Baptist (who might well have used a loudspeaker himself if he had had one on offer) together with his cousin Jesus, the person John had known since before the two of them were born, stepping down in among the reeds and the mud of the Jordan River. Maybe there. Maybe someplace nearby.

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Of the four accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry, Mark’s gospel is the earliest. It’s also the most concise and urgent. I read somewhere in recent days that Mark uses the word “immediately” 47 times…which feels like kind of a lot. There’s no story here about Mary and Joseph and a donkey and a dream, no talk of angels or shepherds and wise men coming to find this new baby – nothing is even mentioned of the Baby Jesus. The beginning of this good news begins with the words of one prophet, Isaiah, and leads us to another prophet, John, whose arrival is the start of our gospel passage today.

Mark tells us about the people from everywhere leaving their homes and their villages, leaving Jerusalem, in order to go out to the wilderness to be baptized by John. This is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, which is a different thing than Jewish people would have known. And people came from all over, hearing that call to repent, which means to turn away; hearing that need to be cleansed from their sins by this unlikeliest of characters: John, with his camel’s hair and his leather belt and his locusts and his wild honey.

This guy out in the wilderness is the one that people are leaving their safety in Jerusalem, leaving their familiarity in their cities and their towns, to go out and meet in the wilderness?

Jesus joins them there. Mark’s gospel leaves out John’s protest – “I should be baptized by you!” – but it tells us this part: “As he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens split open and the Spirit descending like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ ”

The Greek word for the heavens being split open will be the same word this gospel uses for the tearing of the curtain at Jesus’ death. Nothing will separate God’s love from the Beloved in this moment: not the heavens, not anything. And why is he there, even? Why is Jesus going through a rite that is for repentance and the forgiveness of sins – he, who has nothing to turn away from, no sins that need to be forgiven?

Because he would be with us. Because nothing will separate us from him.

And so, God uses ordinary things to convey extraordinary grace. Muddy water and unusual clothes and strange food; urgency, and oil, and some unlikely characters. And a bird and the sky and a voice that I’m not sure which people actually heard – but somebody did, or else we wouldn’t know about it today.

Was there jostling and a concern about who spent how much time in which place? Did someone say “immediately” out loud, with an edge to their voice? Were people keeping track of which of the baptized had the most stature (and did they want to stand in a particular part of that water)? Did the humanity of it all catch up to what was happening? I have to believe that it did.

And still, I’m telling you: I watched a dove fly out over those waters.

C.S. Lewis once told a group of people that, “for Christians, ‘spirit’ is not lighter than matter, but heavier. Spirit is the real substance of God acting in creation and redemption and…reconciliation.

(But) Spirit is always tied to material – real water, real bread, inexpensive wine, beautiful baptismal dresses …Spirit fills us in church and then drives us from church (as it will drive Jesus from the Jordan to the wilderness). There, outside the walls, we wrestle with the beasts, and pray for ministering angels…angels heavier than air.”[1]

God uses the substance of the things we know, in order to convey the heavier reality that is more – more than we can ask, or even imagine: “You are my beloved. With you I am well-pleased.”

The great reality of our faith is that God would be with us. The truth of our faith is that nothing will separate us from God’s love – not the heavens above, not a piece of cloth in the Temple.

Jesus will go on from the shores of the Jordan River, driven immediately out into the wilderness, Mark’s gospel tells us. There, he will be tempted for forty days by the devil, and there will be wild animals. And – thank God – the angels will minister to him.

Only after that does Jesus begin to live his call in ministry. From there, he will bid disciples to join him. He will teach and preach and heal people. He will cast out demons. He will give God thanks for five loaves and two fishes, and will use those to feed a whole bunch of people who are sitting down on a large bit of grass. He will call Lazarus out from the grave, and he will tell those who are with his friend to unbind him, and let him go. He will use his own hands to turn over the tables of the money changers in the Temple.

Over and over again, God will use ordinary things to convey extraordinary grace, teaching us, over and over again that we are the beloved, that God will tear through the heavens in order to be with us. God will use ordinary things to show us that we are called to the ministry of sharing the gifts we have – generously, lavishly, with a world that starves for good news.

And so let us go, now, to the font of our salvation.

[1] Elton Brown. “Pastoral Perspective: Mark 1:4-11” Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 1. Knoxville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010. 236-238.

December 31, First Sunday after Christmas

The First Sunday After Christmas – December 31, 2017

John 1: 1-18

A sermon preached by Debbie Buesing

St. Augustine’s, Wilmette

It is the seventh day of Christmas. In my house, the Magi and their camels have crept halfway around my living room, on their way to meet the Christ Child on top of my piano. Outside, Christmas trees have been stripped of their finery and set out curbside to await the chipper, around the same time the “holiday music,” that has been in non-stop rotation on WLIT-FM since early November, went silent. But here in the Church, we still sing Christmas carols. The green wreaths and red bows are still here, as are the festive vestments on our clergy and the altar. While the world’s attention moves on to the next thing, here we linger over Christmas just a little longer, with today’s lectionary reading presenting that most mysterious of Christmas stories, from the Gospel According to John.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. These words seem far from the beloved mashup of Luke’s and Matthew’s gospels that we know so well from nativity scenes and Christmas pageants. Today we do not hear of angelic messengers, long journeys, strange visitors, or of a poor and no doubt frightened young couple who dared to say YES to a call that must have seemed impossible. The writer of John’s Gospel takes the Christmas narrative away from first century Palestine, across the boundaries of place and time, to proclaim the One who existed before time itself.

What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it … and the Word was made flesh, and lived among us.

To me, the words that introduce John’s gospel are sheer poetry, with their echoes of Genesis and the way they surround its mysterious story with imagery and cadence. I find echoes of John’s words in a modern poem, aptly titled “Christmas,” by English poet John Betjeman, in which he struggles to make meaning of that same mystery.

He opens the poem with several verses describing a walk through his village in the days before Christmas, with its elegant manor houses decked out in greenery, the more modest homes with cutout decorations in the windows, and of course, the pretty church in the center. It may be mid-century England, but he could just as easily be describing Wilmette. But suddenly, in the midst of all that sweetness and nostalgia, a troubling question breaks through to the surface:

 “And is it true?” he asks.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

In the beginning was the Maker of the stars and sea. The Maker of the stars and sea became flesh, and lived among us. This is the story behind the more familiar stories of shepherds abiding in the fields, of wise men following a star to find a baby in an ox’s stall.

The baby part of the story is easy. We like babies. We gather around the font to bless them and welcome them into their new family. We pass them around at coffee hour for snuggles.

It is the Incarnation – literally, the taking on of flesh and muscle and bone – by the Maker of the stars and sea, that gives us pause. It is so staggering a claim that we can, I believe, be forgiven if we too ask, “And is it true?”  -- even when the question comes to us when we don’t want or expect it.

In the town of Bethlehem – which isn’t so little anymore – the Church of the Nativity, which dates to the fourth century, sits on top of a hill, in an open plaza they call Manger Square. Inside the church, there is a hole in the floor above a grotto that the faithful believe is the place Mary and Joseph sought shelter to bring the infant Jesus into the world.

Surrounding the hole in the floor is a large, fourteen-pointed silver star, about 36” across. The fourteen star-points represent the fourteen generations between Jesus and King David, as reported in the Gospel According to Matthew. Pilgrims come here to pray and to reach their hands into that hole in the floor, to touch the sacred space.

When my turn came, I knelt by the star and was suddenly overwhelmed by uninvited questions. Was this really the place? How do they know? Was it maybe down the hill, closer to the shepherd’s fields? Or was it really in Nazareth, like some scholars say? I found myself afraid to reach into the opening, so I just kissed my fingertips and pressed them into the star points. I couldn’t find words to pray. So I just rested in the mystery for a few moments, while sixteen centuries of prayers hung in the air like incense.

And is it true? And if we ask ourselves this, do we dare to ask the next question –

What if it is?

To return to the last part of Betjeman’s poem:

And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

Now that the busy-ness and stress of Christmas preparations are behind us, it is good for us to linger a bit longer with this mysterious “single truth.” To consider, perhaps, that the most tender aspects of our celebrations – whether in recent days or in years gone by – are simply an echo of a greater tenderness. The awkwardness of the well-intended gift that misses the mark but is graciously received (I mean, who among us hasn’t had their own “hideous tie” moment?); or loneliness relieved by a surprise Christmas phone call; or the grace that happens in our own families – families of origin or families of choice – when folks travel across town or across the country to set aside present differences or past disappointments, just to sit down at table together and remember who we are: these joys that we can understand point us towards something that perhaps we cannot: the love that burst through space and time to take on human flesh and walk with us.

The Maker of the stars and sea was made flesh, and dwells among us. This is a mystery, but it is also Good News. May we embrace this truth, and carry it out into the New Year, with joy.

“Christmas” by John Betjeman (1906-1984), published in John Betjeman: Collected Poem   http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/john_betjeman/

December 24, Christmas Eve

Kristin White

Christmas Eve Sermon 2017

St. Augustine’s Church | Wilmette, IL

There’s a video of a pageant gone rather awry making the rounds right now on social media. The video begins at what I imagine is supposed to be the end of the pageant – Mary and Joseph and some angels and animals are all gathered around to adore the baby Jesus as the church’s children’s choir sings “Away in a manger”

(A note worth mentioning here is that the role of the Baby Jesus in that pageant is played, safely, by a doll).

One sheep in that pageant is so consumed in her adoration that she is overcome by it. The baby Jesus is just too irresistible for her probably three-year-old self. So first, she tears off the blanket covering the manger, and throws it aside. But then, there he is – and the singing is still going, and he’s there in the manger, and it seems that there’s nothing to be done but just to pick him up, right? So she does.

Amid the grownups’ laughter that you can hear at this moment on the video, the children’s choir is steadfast. They continue singing. So the little sheep, holding the Baby (doll) Jesus, and now possessing the attention of pretty much every single person in the church, she starts to dance, even, a bit.

Well. Mary the Mother of God does not ponder these things in her heart. In fact, Mary is having none of this. She’s a little bit older than that sheep, and a little bit bigger, and she knows how this thing is supposed to go. Which is not with the Baby (doll) Jesus kidnapped by an affectionate, dancing sheep – however cute she may be.

Mary takes the adoration into her own hands, literally. She reclaims the Baby Jesus by taking the doll right out of the arms of the adoring, adorable sheep and she restores him to his rightful place in the manger.

It turns out, though, that some sheep are tenacious. And this pageant has that sort of a sheep. She waits for her opening, when Mary’s hand has left the manger, grabs the Baby (doll) Jesus and makes a break for it.

Mary comes in hot pursuit, but the sheep blocks her. At the point when “Away in a manger” draws to a close, which helpfully coincides with the moment that suggests Mary might actually tackle the wayward sheep, an adult finally intervenes. And…cut scene. I can only imagine what happened on the other side of that taping – the consolations and reconciliations to be made among members of the holy family...and resident livestock.

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I shared about the writing of this sermon on Friday morning after Eucharist with the group of us who gathered for breakfast after church. One of our members talked about how neat we tend to be in illustrating the story of Jesus’ birth – Mary is always depicted as calmly holding the baby, with everything in place. We find ways of making this story safe, and clean. When I looked back at the children’s Bible that our daughter Grace grew up reading – a version I usually really like, actually – the nativity story has Mary smiling as she finds her way in among the animals for the night: “I’ll be alright here in the hay,” she says to Joseph, “it’s very comfortable.”[1] (Have you sat on hay?!) We domesticate this mystery. We clean it up, make it nice. We discuss it in the abstract. We make it into an intellectual discussion of here, or there, or – God help us – if, at all.

Children’s Christmas pageants bring us back to the audacious particularity of the mystery we proclaim. This person said this. That person did that. This thing happened over there.

And really, sheep gone rogue or not, that is the scandal of this night: the God whom the People Israel had known as transcendent and all-powerful and distant and scary and sometimes smiting was in fact so crazy in love with this creation, with people made in the Divine image who looked like God, that God came into the world She created, looking like us.

The world that God came into had not already gotten its act together in preparation for that night. It was not a safe and clean and peaceful and just and well-fed and logical place, the place where God chose to be born.

In the person of Jesus, God was born: not to Caesar’s wife, or to Herod’s, not to a prophet or the priest of the Temple, but to a young, unmarried woman and her boyfriend, both of them from a small country town that nobody paid attention to. In the person of Jesus, God was attended by the lowliest kind of folks – shepherds were treated like tax collectors and prostitutes, considered dirty because of the kind of work they did; the Magi who came bearing gifts were foreigners, outsiders – they were strange people from a distant land who didn’t belong. In the person of Jesus, God had to escape in the middle of the night, because his life was in danger. In the person of Jesus, God had to get counted as part of a census, to make sure that his family, in their poverty, paid the taxes they owed to the empire.

God was born into all that, and God, in the person of Jesus, blessed every bit of the creation into which he was born. It’s not safe. It’s not clean. It’s not abstract or hypothetical. But it’s real. This night. This place. This holy mystery. Told by these children.

And maybe, through it all, that persistent little sheep with her beloved Baby (doll) Jesus has something infinitely important to teach us about God. Because I believe it’s true that God is so crazy in love with creation, even now, that God will disregard how this thing supposed to go, and tear through the veil of all that would separate us…cast it aside without care for the consequences, in order to get to us. In order to dance with us, even. In order to be with us.

Christ is born, my friends. Alleluia.

[1] Watts, Murray. The Bible for Children: “The Birth of Jesus.” Intercourse, PA: Good Books Publishing, 2002. 218.

December 17, Third Sunday of Advent

Kristin White

They will hold your gaze as you look at the page. You may recognize some of their faces: Ashley Judd. Megyn Kelly. Taylor Swift.

When you see Rose McGowan, I wonder if it will look to you, as it does to me, like her eyes are filled with tears.

There are others there, too, people whose names you may not know: Tarana Burke, the activist. Juana Melara, a hotel housekeeper. A state senator named Sarah Geslar. Adama Iwu, a lobbyist.

They are among the silence breakers. Together, they are Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.[1]

The truth of the experiences they witness to stretches from movie set to newsroom to capitol hallway to hotel suite and beyond. Again and again, the stories have their common threads: he had the money, the position, the contacts, the authority. If she talked, he promised to ruin her – to write her out, to make sure she never worked again…even to kill her. He promised to destroy her. And he could. In some manner, for a time, anyway, it seemed that he could.

So, many of them, needing the paycheck or the chance at a shot, took it. They contorted themselves. They avoided the places of opportunity. They told themselves that circumstances were other than they were, in order to be able to live within them. And they kept silent.

They did not want to be defined by their complaint. They did not want to be defined as their complaint.

It is a fearful thing to say the truth out loud, to let those words leave your mouth. Because after they are gone, in the face of risk and threat, your words don’t belong to you anymore.[2] Witnesses open themselves to scrutiny. People find questions about your motives. We’ve all heard the responses in recent weeks, the remarks: “Well, if that’s true…”, or “Why did she decide to come forward now?” We have heard the equivocations and outright denials, the retaliations. Others promised to destroy them, after all. And they could. In some manner, for a time, they could.

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“The Spirit of the LORD God is upon me,” Isaiah says in today’s first reading, “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide…a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.”[3]

The season of Advent is a season of waiting and watching for God right here in our midst. It’s a time when God sends us prophets – never meant as the kind of fortune tellers some would make them out to be; no, the prophets are the witnesses. They are the ones willing to say aloud what they know to be real, in the face of doubt and scrutiny. They are the ones who open themselves to questions of motive, where risk and threat are real. Others will promise to destroy them. And they could, for a time at least.

But the truth that the prophet Isaiah tells in today’s first lesson is that there is more than the contortion, the avoidance, the equivocation that too many have known for too long. There is more to God’s promise than the grief of this present moment. There is more for us than a faint spirit.

The People Israel have been driven from their home, made to live in a land that is not their own. After a generation of loss, Isaiah tells them the greater truth of God’s news to this beloved people: that there is more.

And so they go home, only to find that there is no newly-rebuilt temple, to find that those who never left Jerusalem have worked out their own ways of doing things. The ancient ruins are not built up, the ruined city not restored to what it was, what it could be.

The glory the people Israel had imagined upon their homecoming is not what they encounter.

Still, this promise from the prophet, the witness: “For I the LORD love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.”[4]

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They will hold your gaze, those silence breakers. I look again at them, remembering that in order for God’s anointed to reach those whose hearts have been broken, and those who have been held captive, and those who grieve, then God’s own anointed has to confront the powers and principalities that made them so.[5]

They stare back off the page, those breakers of silence, their backs straight, their chins set, their unwavering gaze locked on yours.

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John the Baptist comes into our gospel narrative last week and this week as one who defies explanation.

The people in positions of power try to figure him out, asking, “Who are you?” All he can say at first is what he is not: not the messiah, not Elijah, and he says he is not a prophet...

“Well, who are you?” they ask again, probably exasperated at this point, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I am the voice crying in the wilderness, ‘prepare the way of the Lord.’ ”[6] he tells them.

The things John the Baptist seems to say most often are “Behold,” and “Repent.” Behold, as in: look – look at what you’re doing. And Repent, which means: turn around. You’re going the wrong way, and you need to find your way back home again.

I wonder what John would say, in this Advent moment. I wonder how he might confront those who contorted power, that they might leverage silence. Where would he say “Behold!”[7] What principalities would he call to turn back?

John’s whole life is about witnessing to Jesus. He is the one always pointing to the Word. Before he is even born, scripture tells us that he leaps in Elizabeth’s womb at realizing that he is in the presence of Christ. He is the one who calls us to prepare for God’s coming. Soon, he will be filled with awe at doing it, but John will be the one who steps into the muddy waters of the Jordan to baptize Jesus. John will see the Spirit descend, will hear a voice from heaven tell him that this is the Son of God.

John proclaims God in our midst, calling people to live as though that is true. And there are those who would destroy him, because of it. With each “Behold” that leaves his mouth, John confronts the powers that would imprison and contort. And if we know nothing else of power, we know that it will seek to protect itself. And so John will find himself in prison. He will find himself constrained. And that will not be the end.

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The writers of the Time Magazine article talk about another common thread those silence breakers share. As they put it, “Almost everybody described wrestling with a palpable sense of shame. Had she somehow asked for it? Could she have deflected it? Was she making a big deal out of nothing?”

He promised to destroy her, after all.

Did she avert her eyes?

I want to respond with the words of today’s second reading, from Paul’s first letter to the church at Thessolonika. In it, Paul writes: “May the God of peace sanctify you entirely.”[8]

This letter is probably one of the earliest of all the Christian writings we have. People among the first of the Christian communities were beginning to grow old and die, and Jesus hadn’t returned to them in the way they anticipated. So they didn’t know what it all meant. They didn’t know that it would take this long. They weren’t sure how they were supposed to live, and they weren’t doing a great job of taking care of each other.

Paul, who it seems to me doesn’t usually restrain himself from harshness, responds instead in the words of this letter with a call to charity, to love: rejoice and pray and give thanks, he writes. Hold fast to what is good, and refrain from doing evil.

Too often, our culture presumes that the word of the church will be a word of judgment. And too often, it has been. So what grace might we find, in this Advent moment, for the church to offer blessing, instead: may the God of peace sanctify you entirely – not the part of you that didn’t get twisted by circumstance, not the you before you encountered whatever it was that you wish you could have avoided. But all of you. May you know yourself as whole and holy and sacred by the God who created you. Because the one who created you is the one who calls you; and the one who calls you is faithful.

What healing might that offer, to those who kept silent, for the reasons that they had, for the time that they did? What gift might that be, for them to know themselves as blessed, entirely, by God?

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The God whose way we prepare in this Advent season is the God of an everlasting covenant, who promises the good news of liberty and comfort and praise.

The God whose way we make straight is the same God who sanctifies you entirely.

Behold: that is the God to whom we cry out in witness; the God who will not let you be destroyed, in the end.

Level your gaze there. Look there, on our good God.

[1] http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2017-silence-breakers/

[2] http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5022

[3] http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv3_RCL.html#ot1

[4] ibid

[5] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1100

[6] http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv3_RCL.html#gsp1

[7] http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5022

[8] http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv3_RCL.html#nt1

December 3, First Sunday of Advent

Kristin White

Advent 1 – December 3, 2017

Mark 13:24-37

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 came to us in great humility; that in the last day, when he comes in majesty to judge the living and the dead, we may rise to life immortal. Amen.

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Narnia is a mess.

It is the Last Battle, in CS Lewis’s book of the same name, the rightful last book in the Chronicles of Narnia. (They have re-ordered the books in that series since my childhood. I have feelings about this.)

But as I said, Narnia is a mess at the point of the Last Battle. That great country, begun in the imagination of my childhood, returned to each time I read those seven books – in their proper order – to Grace, during her childhood…well that country is falling apart.

A cunning ape without a conscience has discovered a way for his simple friend, a donkey, to impersonate Aslan, the great lion, king of all the kings in Narnia. And as you can imagine, the cunning creature without a conscience who finds his way into unchecked power manages to wreak certain havoc in Narnia.

Holy trees are cut down, talking beasts enslaved and beaten. Evil seems to prevail. The Narnia that is, is not the Narnia it was created to be.

In that Last Battle, the rightful king fights those who have done the work of evil in the land this king loves. The numbers are what you might imagine – those they oppose outnumber the king and his friends, and the mark that they’re losing this Last Battle is the fact that they are being maneuvered, edged closer and closer to a doorway they are loathe to cross. It’s the door to a stable, where the imposter seeks to dispose of his enemies one by one. That stable is a place built of lies, based on fear.

The king of Narnia fights bravely alongside two mysteriously-appearing English youth (that happens, in Lewis’s books), and together with a faithful remnant of Narnian creatures. They’re fighting with everything they have for the Narnia they know. And they are doing all they can, in that Last Battle, to stay away from the stable door.

But they can’t. Of course they can’t. The thing they fear will be the thing they face. And so, one by one, they go through the doorway of that stable. And it is the end. The Last Battle, after all, has to mean the end of something.

But it is also more than they had imagined: brighter, and more spacious. And others they know and love are there, too. As one beloved friend reminds them, “A stable once held something inside that was bigger than our whole world.”[1]

And then it is time. Time for an end to the world they have known. Time for the stars to be called down from the sky. Time for the forests to disappear, and the seas to rise, and for the sun’s light to be squeezed from the sky. And finally, finally, it is time to make an end: to close that stable door.

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Peter and James and John and Andrew are the only four disciples to hear Jesus say what he tells them in the passage of Mark’s gospel that we heard read today. It makes sense that it would be them, the first to drop their nets – immediately – to follow him.[2]

Together with Jesus, they had gone to the Mount of Olives, looked with him across the Kidron Valley (it’s not far) to Jerusalem, to the walls that still surround what is now known as the Old City, the Temple that adorned it, the place they believe to be God’s dwelling.

“It will all come down,” he told them. “Not one stone will be left on another.”

The four respond, as you’d imagine:

“When with this happen, and how will we know?”

So Jesus tells them what he tells us in today’s gospel lesson: the same story of the Last Battle, really, the stars called down from the sky, the light of the sun grown dark.

But, as Barbara Brown Taylor writes:

“He does not say it to scare them. He says it to comfort them. They need to know that even something as frightening as the end of the world is in God’s good hands. When the cosmos collapses and every light in the sky is put out, they are to remember that God is sovereign over darkness as well as light, and they are to watch – watch even in the darkness – for God coming to them in the clouds.”[3]

It would all seem very real, I imagine, about 30 years later, when Mark wrote down the words of today’s gospel lesson.

Jerusalem was a mess. The Temple had fallen, stone from stone. Cunning men unburdened by conscience stood ready to tell the people what God meant, actually, by all this. Christians were being destroyed as a people from without, by the same emperor who had destroyed Jerusalem, at the same time that those Christians were doing a fine job of destroying one another from within.

Did they think it was all a big mistake? Did they shake their fists at the darkness and the chaos of it all? Did they cry out to the God they longed to believe in, that the world around them could never have been the world God created us all to be?

Is that the moment when Mark told the story again? Is that when he reminded them that Jesus had told them this all must come to pass? There can be no new world, you see, if we can’t find a way to loose our grasp on the old one. And that letting go can be a painful, even a brutal thing: sometimes what we have held onto will crash. Sometimes it burns, and our job is to bless and scatter the ashes that remain.

Here is the good news, like the painful touch of an unprotected nerve that needs tending to, but which we’d rather just leave alone: the excruciating good news is that the end will come. And it will come, not because God has abandoned us, but because God is so very much with us. In God’s presence is great glory, the kind of power that can make something out of nothing, can breathe life and beauty into those very same ashes.

So stay awake, my friends. And pray with me for grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Because “there is not just one end to the world, any more than there is just one coming of Christ to look forward to.”[4]

The world ended under cover of darkness with a vote and the bang of a gavel late Friday night for people who already find themselves on the margins. The stars fell from the sky for more than 300 families in Egypt, just over a week ago, when gunmen entered a mosque on a mission of death. The moon loses its light every other hour of the day when still another person is shot in Chicago. The sun ceases shining every time a teenage girl finds herself in the hands of a predator.

The world can end for any one of us at any moment: in the words of a diagnosis; at the death of our beloved; in a single act of stunning betrayal; a breaking; a moment of profound injustice.

The door of the stable is there for each of us, and we fight our battles to the last, trying to keep our feet from crossing its threshold. Like the disciples, of course we want to know the particulars: “Tell us,” we demand, “Tell us when will this be, and what will be the signs when these things are to be accomplished?”

But remember: we know of a stable that once held something inside that was bigger than our whole world. And Christ’s entry into this world of ours, in power and great glory, offers the very brightness we need, when the sun and the moon and the stars have been torn from our skies.

Our work of faith in this season is not to pull calculators and make predictions about time and place, so we can avoid it. It is not to offer blame about who is at fault in this end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it moment. It is not to hunker down out of the terror of darkness, or to keep so busy that we can pretend none of this is actually happening.

No. Ours is to stay awake, and watch for the One who comes as friend, in power and great glory. Ours is to light candles in this season; because the night is long, but the day will come. Ours is to pray for the grace to cast away the works of darkness, to put on the armor of light; trusting in the promise of the far side of that door, in the pure love of the One who promises to be with us always…even and especially as we step across its threshold.

[1] C. S. Lewis. The Last Battle. 141.

[2] I’m grateful for the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor’s sermon, “With Power and Great Glory” found in her book Gospel Medicine, which inspired much of this sermon of mine.

[3] Barbara Brown Taylor. Gospel Medicine. 135.

[4] ibid

November 26, Feast of Christ the King

Text: Matthew 25:31-46

Pastor Frank C. Senn, STS

We’ve come to the end of the church year. We spent this church year with the Gospel of Matthew. The late Swedish dean of Harvard Divinity School and Bishop of Stockholm, Krister Stendahl, proposed that the final form of this Gospel is from the school of St. Matthew, a kind of Christian Yeshiva dedicated to studying the Torah taught by rabbi and Son of God Jesus the Christ. So we’ve been attending the school of St. Matthew this year and we want to be passed on...into the kingdom of heaven.  But as with completing any school, there’s a final exam and a last evaluation by Christ our headmaster.

Students always want to know what’s going to be on the test.  What do we have to know to get into the kingdom of heaven?

Well, actually it’s not a matter of what you know. Nor do you have to cram for a final, because you’re actually doing the final exam right now…in every day life.

What are we doing every day that we will be evaluated on?

 Oh… things like feeding the hungry, giving the thirsty something to drink, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, visiting the imprisoned.

How will the examiner know we have done those things? Do we have a card that gets checked off every time we do something that shows care for someone?

No. Christ knows how we are responding to the needs of his lowly ones because…we’re doing those things for him. When have we seen him hungry or thirst, naked or a wandering stranger, sick or in jail and taken care of his needs?

Christ tells us: inasmuch as you have done to it to the least of my brothers and sisters, you have done it to me.  Christ the king will welcome into his kingdom those who have cared for and welcomed him in his lowly ones.  Those who have not done these things for him will be excluded.

“Excluded?”  It’s not a word we like to use.  It’s not politically correct.  So I suppose we could say, well, there’s another place prepared for those who failed the exam where they will be included.  But however you want to imagine that place, you won’t be happy to be there, because you won’t be basking in the approval of the king, or eating and drinking at the heavenly feast, or singing in the heavenly choir---or however you want to imagine the kingdom of heaven.

Perhaps before we go any further I should remind us that this is a parable---the third of three parables of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 25. It is not a literal script of the last judgment when the dead are raised and stand before Christ the king.  Like all parables it is a story that draws on something familiar but has a surprising twist. The familiar is the custom of dividing the sheep and the goats into separate pens when they are brought in from mingling together in the pasture of the world. Jesus uses this as an analogy of the separation of the nations at the last judgment.

So we had better bring that part of the story to our attention also. In Jesus’s parable it is the nations who are gathered for judgment, not individuals. But the text invites us to think not of nation-states, but of “all the peoples” (panta ta ethnoi). When we ask how a nation as a whole people cares for its sick and hungry and takes care of its prisoners and welcomes the strangers who cross its borders, we are asking questions which need to be asked and which can be answered. Nations have the means of responding to human need in ways that individuals do not. But especially in “democratic” countries like ours, the government is to a large extent a reflection of the people and their values and opinions. So it would be a mistake to conclude that because it is a judgment of the nations that it’s not about us individually.  The nation won’t change unless its people change, and if we want the people to change, then we’d better be prepared for the change to begin with us.  We’re not off the hook.  We still have to ask how we personally should respond to this teaching.

I should also tell you that it is likely that Jesus is referring here to the members of his community of disciples in all their nations---those nations to whom the apostles took Jesus’ teaching in the Great Commission at the end of the gospel of Matthew when he sent them into all the world, making disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them Jesus’ interpretation of the Torah. Our NRSV translation refers to “members of Jesus’ family” whereas older translations had “my brothers.”  “Brothers” is more accurate, and if it were just a matter of inclusivity the translation could have expanded this to “brothers and sisters.”  So obviously the translators were imposing an interpretation on the text.  They were opting for the view that Jesus intends by “the least of these” to mean the lowly members of his own community—that is, the church. 

The Gospel of Matthew is very much a manual for the church in which Jesus himself is present where two or three gather in his name. We are aware that the early church took care of the its widows and orphans, ministered to its sick members, welcomed traveling apostles, prophets, and teachers, and visited the brothers and sisters who were apprehended for the faith.

But even if we accept this interpretation, we cannot rigidly limit those to whose needs we respond just to the members of our own congregation.  Most of the needy who receive the ministries of the church in food kitchens and shelters are probably baptized or have had some church connection at some point in their lives.  Like the sheep and the goats out in the pasture of the world, we can’t keep one group away from the other until we corral them in. So as a practical matter, we don’t have to decide whether “brothers” refers only to church members. They don’t have to produce a membership card to receive our ministries.

Those who have needs that we can meet are the ones who receive our ministries.  Our willingness to meet those needs provide criteria for the judgment of Christ the King.

So is it good works after all?  This has been the year of the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. A lot of print was spent on arguing about faith versus good works. Was the Reformation’s emphasis on justification by faith wrong?

No, because the works of ministry done by those who are passing the test were done in a non-calculating way.  You see, they didn’t know they were doing things for Jesus. That’s the surprising twist in this parable. In Jesus’ story of the last judgment both the righteous and the unrighteous have to ask the same question: “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you something to eat or thirsty and gave you something to drink or a stranger and welcomed you in or naked and covered you or sick and took care of you or in prison and visited you?”         

Martin Luther and the Protestant reformers were not opposed to doing good works. They were opposed to works righteousness:  that’s performing good works in a way calculated to merit something good for ourselves, like God’s approval or blessing or even salvation. Luther said, Christ has taken care of our salvation so we are free to take care of our neighbor.

St. Matthew doesn’t advocate works righteousness any more than St. Paul does. What Matthew is saying is: If we have been schooled by the Holy Spirit who was given to us in Holy Baptism, we will do what is needed when situations arise.  Faith will be active in deeds of love.  Little Cecilia who is being baptized today doesn’t know what she’s getting into. But the church which sponsors this baptism had better know what we’re getting her into and provide the means of having her schooled in the teaching of Jesus as she grows more deeply into his life, death, and resurrection.    

Since what we are doing for every person in meeting their needs we are doing for Christ, we are growing in our relationship with Christ by performing these deeds of love. Those who receive our ministries are representatives, icons, of Jesus himself.  The traditional icons that we use in prayer and worship are representations of Jesus that, when contemplated over time, begin to reveal to us who Jesus is.  So it is quite a big statement to say that each person is an icon of Christ. Even more so if we emphasize that it is those whom society generally regards as the least who are most especially icons of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps then it is in the very things that cause them to be regarded as the least—their sickness, their poverty, their brokenness—that most reveal Jesus to us. We say, in the words of Isaiah, that Jesus on the cross took upon himself all our infirmities. It is a more difficult, but ultimately an unavoidable step, to see in the brokenness and wretchedness of others the image of the suffering Christ.

So the next time you find yourself haunted by an image of someone in need, whether here in our local community or somewhere else in the world, take that image with you in prayer. Spend some time asking Jesus to show you how he is in that person, how that person reveals more of who Jesus is. Genuine and worthwhile action for humanity and justice does not usually come from knee jerk reactions, but from a deepening understanding of where God is within the situation.  If you and I spend a bit more time contemplating the meaning of the icons of Christ in human need, and less time worrying about what’s on the final exam, we might begin to see how and where the reign of God comes in this world.  And then comes the surprise. When we pray “thy kingdom come,” God’s kingdom is coming to us.  Amen.

– Pastor Frank C. Senn, STS

November 19, Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon for the 24. Sunday after Pentecost

Deacon Sue Nebel

Some years ago, when I had started on the path to ordination, a priest in a nearby parish invited me to speak at an adult formation session.  I am fuzzy on the details, but my memory is that they were doing a series on the variety of ministries in the church.  Or, maybe the theme was  people’s faith journeys.  At any rate, they wanted me to come and tell my story.  So I went. I told them about the various places, as well as the twists and turns, that made up my path. Growing up in a Congregational church in a good-sized city.   Being part of all kinds of things there. Choirs, Sunday School, youth groups. . .and Christmas pageants.  In adulthood, an intentional turning away from organized religion to explore new ideas and concepts. To broaden my thinking and my understanding.  Then, after sixteen years, in response to a growing awareness of my spiritual needs, I returned to the church.  This time, the Episcopal Church, where my faith commitment deepened and grew. Leading, after many years to the exploration of ordained ministry.

After I finished my presentation to the group, there was opportunity for questions.  Someone asked me, “Looking back, what was the most important teaching in your early formation? No one had ever asked me that before.  I remember standing there for the briefest moment, thinking, ‘Oh my, what I am going to say?’  It is a little like being faced with a multiple-choice question on a test.  Teachers tell you to go with your first guess.  You have the knowledge inside of you and the right answer will emerge into your consciousness.  The answer to that question about the most important teaching was deep inside me, but not yet articulated.  I simply needed to trust the Holy Spirit to push it up into my head and my mouth. After a brief pause, I responded, “It was that the abilities we have are gifts from God and they are to be used in the service of others.” I was a little surprised to hear myself say those words.  Surprised because I had never verbalized that learning before. But, at the same time, I knew the deep truth of it.  If you were to ask me that question today, I would respond with the same answer. 

I have spent some time thinking and reflecting about that experience and my statement. The abilities we have are gifts from God and are to be used in the service of others. Where did that come from?  What are the threads that came together to form that belief?  Certainly, my family  experience.  I grew up in a faithful family with parents who were service-oriented, active in many organizations and projects.  They expected their children to do the same.  Church, of course. The Congregational church of my childhood was a downtown church, situated on the edge of the central business district.  The noise and the hustle and bustle of life outside its doors were impossible to ignore.  That church was always reaching out to address the needs of the city.  It filtered down to the youth groups. We had the usual educational programs and social events, but service projects were the big deal.  Mission trips to faraway places never occurred to us. The city and its needs gave us plenty to do right at home.  

Scripture was another shaping influence.  I got a heavy dose of Bible stories in Sunday School classes in my early years. Mostly stories of Jesus and his teachings.  Stories like the one we have in our Gospel lesson this morning: The Parable of the Talents.  A man, about to go off on a journey, gives talents to three of his slaves.  To one, he gives five. To the second, he gives two. And to the third slave, he gives one talent.  The first two slaves immediately begin trading with theirs and double what they had received.  The third slave, the one with only one talent, buries it in the ground for safekeeping. Then the master returns and asks for an accounting. He is pleased with the first two men, for increasing their amount of talents.  But he is angry with the third one for holding onto his one talent and doing nothing at all with it.  I can imagine hearing that story in Sunday School with my child’s ears.  The teacher might have told us that a talent was a large amount of money, or maybe she chose to just let us hear it as a story about human talents.  Whichever it was, I can tell you that I understood it as a story about human talents.  Talents were given to the slaves in the story and they were something given to me.  Not to be held onto, to be buried somewhere to be kept safe. . .and unused..  Talents were a gift from a master, from God, and I was expected to do something good with them.   It became a core belief.

The story of the talents comes near the end of the Gospel of Matthew.  Jesus is in Jerusalem; it is the final week of his life.  He is talking to the crowd about the kingdom. Throughout his ministry, he has taught people about the kingdom.  A vision of the world as God wants it to be.  A setting where human life thrives, where the well-being of everyone is a given.  Where every single person—even someone who was considered lowest and least—is valued and loved.  In this long speech before the events of his arrest, trial, and death, Jesus is talking about the kingdom in terms of situations and actions of everyday life.  The kingdom is like bridesmaids with their lamps lit, waiting for the arrival of the bridegroom.  The kingdom is like three men with a gift of money and what they do with it.  Next week, to give you a sneak preview, Jesus will talk about kingdom actions: feeding the hungry, giving a thirsty person something to drink, welcoming the stranger.  

The early followers of Jesus found hope in his talk about a kingdom. They anticipated that it would be a dramatic event, when everything changed.   After  Jesus’ death and resurrection, they told people about his teachings.  They continued the work he had started. Gradually they realized that the big, hoped-for event was not coming anytime soon.  Probably not in their lifetime. The kingdom then became something they would make real through their words and their actions.  They became kingdom-doers. Doing the work Jesus’ described.  Reaching out and welcoming the stranger.  Feeding and clothing those in need.  It is work that has been carried forward through the history of the Church. From then until now.  . We join in that long tradition to do that work in our own time and place. We too become kingdom-doers. 

Today, many of us are probably anticipating the holiday of Thanksgiving.  Planning a festive meal. Welcoming family, or perhaps planning to travel to be with family.  One of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving is the glimpses of the kingdom that we get.  St. John’s in Flossmoor where I served last Sunday, is having a Thanksgiving meal for their members today. A gathering that will be, for some people, their only Thanksgiving because they are alone or elderly and not up to making a big meal.  Other churches, not just Episcopal ones, are making Thanksgiving happen for the community beyond their walls. Welcoming those who are poor, lonely, or hungry. Some are happening today. Others will take place on Thursday.  TV news and newspapers, in the coming days, will give us stories and images of this kind of outreach.  People lining up to receive free turkeys and bags of  food. People gathering  to prepare community meals. People serving and people being served.   It looks like the kingdom to me.

Efforts like this will continue on through what we think of as “the holiday season.”  Efforts by St. A’s and Episcopal churches throughout the diocese to provide Christmas gifts for families served by the Revive Center.  Large boxes in local business, fire stations, and other places where people can donate toys for children.  Dry cleaners, churches, and a local TV station collecting warm coats and jackets.  For a brief, shining time the kingdom seems to thriving, all around us.  The holiday season will come to an end.  All those people who became kingdom-doers (whether they thought of themselves that way or not) will consider their work done.  They will return to their regular routines.  They may be done with kingdom work, but we won’t be.  Not us.  We know better.  The needs of the world around us will still be there.  We have to keep working. Our work as kingdom-doers is not seasonal work. It is lifelong work. not seasonal work for us

Proper 28: Year A

Zephaniah 1:7,12-18; Psalm 90:1-8,12; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30

November 12, Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost

We Have More to Offer Than Our Thoughts and Prayers

The Rev. Andrew Suitter

Matthew 25:1-13

My thoughts and prayers are with you. 

No, no. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Over the last few weeks, and especially since last Sunday and the horrific church shooting in Texas, these words have been the focus of many posts woven throughout social media because for many—these seven words have become a source of irritation. 

When a national crisis or tragedy happens—

—like the senseless killings of innocents while sitting in church—

—or when there is an epidemic like the opioid crisis—

—or when there is ongoing generational poverty in certain pockets of an entire city—

—or when there are increasing rates of mass incarcerations—

--these seven words always seem to find their place in the paths of those affected by these situations.

Well, my thoughts and prayers are with you. 

Now—to be clear—I think when these words are spoken—I like to believe they have true, honest, and sincere intent—and they are indeed a gift in the right circumstances.  My thoughts and prayers are yours.  They are indeed with you! 

But—let’s be honest—when tragedies happen—any kind of tragedy—we do not always know what to do or what to say—and clergy are no exception!  Not only do we not always know what to say, we don’t always know how to react ourselves—and so we say what might be most familiar—and maybe even what seems most appropriate given our Christian vernacular——my thoughts and prayers are with you.  And with this, we believe it, and we mean it. 

The recent pushback against these seven words comes on the heels of massively violent crimes aimed at innocent people. And this pushback, in all its various forms, asks questions that we don’t always know or have the answers for.  Questions like:

-Are our prayers working? 

-What can we do in addition to prayer so to spare the pain of these tragedies in the future? 

-Whose hearts do we pray, change?

-Am I able to offer more than just my thoughts and prayers?     

If anyone has read or listened to the news in the last 30 days alone, we know there is a lot of pain being felt all over.  And sometimes, it seems anyway, there is only so much that we have to give to the problems of the world on top of those we face in our own lives—and together it can be overwhelming as we search for a place in which to care for both.  Sometimes thoughts and prayers are the perfect offering, but what about when there is more to do?

I am thankful for the voices who have called out those of us who use this language—myself included, because deep down what they are saying is that apart from our theologies, apart from our beliefs about laws and government—we are a people who are called to the suffering of the world—and doing the work of relieving it. 

I am thankful for the critique of those for whom these seven words bother, because they remind us that we have more to offer than only our thoughts and prayers—and they remind us that what we say, isn’t always what is heard—even with the purest of hearts.    

And, if I am honest—the critique is just uncomfortable, despite the gains from it, because it asks me to check myself! 

It is asking me to rethink not only how I pray, but how open I am to ACT!? And what has made me most uncomfortable, is that these voices, calling us out, are a reminder to reconnect, to recommit, or even to begin walking on the path of loving and healing this world—and its not always easy.

Beloveds, these voices crying for deeper honesty, demanding more action, and requiring substance in our care in addition to thoughts and prayers—are reminiscent of the prophets of old who called God’s people to a higher standard of love.

These voices are our prophets today—they are the loud voices—they are the ones calling our attention to reconsider our words and our actions—and asking us to pay even a bit more attention to the pains all around us—because many times we indeed have more to offer than our thoughts and prayers alone. 

It is through our actions as disciples and witnesses to God’s grace, after all, in addition to our thoughts and prayers, that we make visible God’s kingdom in the world….

Today’s gospel lesson highlights the 10 bridesmaids who are a metaphor for our own preparedness for God’s kingdom. And while this lesson is a lesson on heaven—a lesson on life in the aftermath of this world—I would rather like to think that this is an introduction to the kingdom of heaven right here—right now!

The foolish and the wise bridesmaids hold a mirror up to us as we traverse this world.  We run short sometimes.  We fall asleep when we might miss something.  We forget the prudence in being prepared.

Sometimes, though, we miscalculate in thinking that we are being prudent and prepared. Just this week, a friend was in my car and while I was driving, insisted that I pull over to the next gas station.  I was shocked.  I asked what his concern was, and he said, “as cold as it is, your gas light is on, and you need to stop and fill up.” 

I tried to explain that he needn’t worry, that for the last twenty years of my driving, its become a game—how far can I go—and only once have I ever run out and it was when I was 16.  He just looked at me with disgust, and clearly was not impressed.  And standing here telling you this, I myself am not very impressed either.  Processing out loud, always has a different interpretation, yes?   

He started to speak, and so I paused. He said what some of you might have said or be thinking with me now, “That’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, Andrew.  Go to the gas station NOW!”

And so I went—but begrudgingly because I felt like I knew what I was doing—and because my game is fun—for me—but concerning for a passenger.  I was going to get it the next day, I knew I had another 50 miles or so, but any time save for now, did not work for my friend. And, I can’t blame him.  “Wake up Andrew, you’re gonna get us both stuck out here in this cold.” 

He may even have been right. 

****

“Keep Awake!”, the prophets say. 

“Wake up” my friend says. 

“You have more to offer than thoughts, prayers and good vibes” says the world. 

Our friends, while critical of our words, only want more of our potential from us.  Our friends are asking us to pay better attention to the pains we see and to be ever faithful in our care—or to consider that maybe our prayers can become our hands and feet doing the work we are praying for someone else to do. 

Maybe we are the gap.  Maybe we are the answer to another’s pain.  Maybe it is our hand, our time, our resource, our presence, our advocacy, our sense, our comfort that is needed in addition to our thoughts and prayers, that will make a difference for the pain we feel and observe all around us. 

One of the blessings you will hear from this pulpit, is a prayer that we might offer ourselves in care, and compassion for those around us.  The blessing goes:

“Life is short … and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel the way with us. So be swift to love and make haste to be kind.” 

This, beloveds, is our task:  That we stay awake to love, to serve, to be kindness in the world where there is so much pain. 

May we be doers of our words, and answers to the prayers of all the faithful. Amen.