SUNDAY OF THE TRANSFIGURATION

Exodus 34:29-35

Psalm 99

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

Luke 9:28-36

Prayer of the Day: Holy God, mighty and immortal, you are beyond our knowing, yet we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Transform us into the likeness of your Son, who renewed our humanity so that we may share in his divinity, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“And while [Jesus] was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” Luke 9:29-31.

There are four versions of this story of Jesus’ transfiguration. One is related in our gospel for this coming Sunday from Luke the Evangelist. Two are in the gospels of Matthew and Mark (Matthew 17:1-8 and Mark 9:2-8 respectively). Another is found in the Second Letter of Saint Peter. II Peter 1:16-19. Though Matthew and Mark both tell us that Jesus was seen speaking with Moses and Elijah, only Luke tells us what they were talking about. They were speaking, Luke tells us, of Jesus’ “departure” to be accomplished in Jerusalem. The word translated here as “departure” is the Greek word “exodos,” the same one used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures for the departure of Israel from slavery in Egypt. Thus, the discussion is not simply about Jesus leaving or going away. It is about a saving event that will liberate an enslaved people from bondage and make of them a new people, namely, Jesus’ death and resurrection.

The renowned New Testament scholar, Rudolf Bultmann, is convinced that the transfiguration story is an ancient resurrection account transposed in the gospels for literary reasons. Bultmann, Rudolf, History of the Synoptic Tradition, (c. 1963 by Basil Blackwell, pub. 1976 by Harper & Row) p. 259. However that might be, there is no denying the story has a resurrection glow to it. We are told that Moses, Elijah and Jesus appear “in glory.” In some manner beyond our capacity to comprehend, eternity is impinging on time, bending it into a single point where the beginning is fused with the end, the promise meets fulfilment and the line of demarcation between life and death dissolves. We get a foretaste of the resurrection and a fleeting glance at what it means for God to be “all in all.” I Corinthians 15:28. This is what Hollywood would call a “spoiler.” The Transfiguration of Jesus betrays the climactic end of creation’s story in the middle of the narrative.

One might critique the Evangelists’ literary style, but their witness is entirely consistent with the scriptural insistence that creation has a beginning and an end. God is the origin of both and is active everywhere in between. In the Biblical view of things, the future does not follow nor is it determined by the past. The end is the origin of the beginning and, for disciples of Jesus, forms the shape life takes in the middle. Knowing this changes everything and answers for us the question, “How, then, shall we live?” The contours of the new life to which Jesus calls us are sketched out in the gospel lessons from the last two Sundays in which the false gods of wealth and violence are dethroned in favor of radical generosity, limitless forgiveness and dedication to reconciliation. As articulated by Michael L. Budde, Professor of Catholic Studies and Political Science at DePaul University, “….within the Church, people are supposed to start acting as if the Kingdom has already begun, and that the Church is called to show the world that a different way to live is possible here and now, even as the old order seeks to preserve itself against the onslaught of the coming Kingdom of God.” “Eschatology, the Church, and Nonviolence: Some Provisional Claims” published in Foolishness to Gentiles: Essays on Empire, Nationalism, and Discipleship, (c. 2022 by Michael L. Budde, pub. by Wipf and Stock Publishers) pp. 84-85.

For this reason, it matters that the weathered old man I frequently see in my walks on the beach carries a garbage bag, as do I, for the plastic bottles, aluminum cans and other refuse we find along the shore. It matters that local churches, businesses and individuals in our town put togethera weekly dinner for families finding themselves food insecure. It matters that the church to which I belong sponsors a refugee family fleeing violence and persecution. Of course, one might reasonably ask whether such feeble do-gooding actually makes a difference. What good does picking up a few bottles on the beach do in the face of looming, systemic ecological collapse? What does one meal per week do for a family facing hunger during all seven days of the week? What is one family rescued from the misery of refugee camps compared to the millions that remain? From the perspective of pure pragmatism, it is hard to argue with that logic. Yet I hear an echo in all these objections of the question put by Saint Andrew to Jesus when commanded to feed the hungry crowd of five thousand: What are five loaves and a few fish among so many? John 6:1-14. Placed in the hands of Jesus, what we have to offer and, indeed, who we are becomes so much more than we can imagine. That is because the gentle, just and peaceful reign of God at the end of time has been with us since the beginning and has erupted into the middle of time with the obedient life, faithful death and glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ. As stated by Orthodox theologian and teacher, John Panteleimon Manoussakis:

“Theologically speaking, then, the cause of the things that happen and have happened lies not in their beginning but ‘in the end,’ for they come from the kingdom of God: it is the kingdom that is, properly speaking, their origin…Eschatology…reverses naturalistic, essentialist, and historicist models by making the seemingly improbable claim that I am not who I am, let alone who I was and have been, but rather, like the theophanic Name of Exodus (3:14), I am who I will be. Eschatological theology is deep down a liberating theology…The shadow now does not follow but rather precedes reality, so that, in Christian typology, the present condition of things as things-themselves is merely an adumbration of things to come.” “The Anarchic Principle of Christian Eschatology in the Eucharistic Tradition of the Eastern Church,” Manoussakis, John Panteleimon, Harvard Theological Review, 100:1 (2007) pp. 31-32, as cited in Foolishness to the Gentiles, supra. at p. 84.

That is good news, for a world threatened with global environmental disaster, teetering on the brink of war and sliding toward fascism. It is good news for every social worker with an impossibly high caseload. It is good news for struggling churches in dying communities. It is good news for doctors, nurses and volunteers working long hours with inadequate resources in refugee camps around the world filled with people who seem to have no future. While we cannot save ourselves, much less the world, God is even now taking up our flawed selves and our incomplete offerings, weaving them into that glorious mosaic we call the reign of God.

What follows is a poem by Raymond P. Fischer suggesting a different view of time than that which we have instinctively imposed upon ourselves and the natural world. “Somewhere,” the poet says, “there is a sum of everything.” That is perhaps not far removed from the Biblical understanding of time.  

Time

When Eve met Satan in creation’s garden

She set time free within the universe.

Planets began to circle, stone hardened.

Coveting knowledge, man received a curse-

That was the choice that set all things in motion-

Caused spinning worlds to measure off the days,

And moon to swing round the earth pursued by ocean.

Somewhere there is a sum of everything,

Where light returning meets the light that goes;

Where fading music finds an echoing;

Where tide ebbs is lost in tide that flows.   

Source: Poetry, April, 1984. Raymond P. Fischer (1900-1990) was an American businessman and poet. He was born in Wheaton Illinois, the youngest of twelve children and grandson of abolitionist Jonathan Blanchard, the founder of Wheaton College. Fischer attended Wheaton College and Pomona College, California. He then transferred to Harvard Law School, graduating in 1924. Fischer practiced law for fifteen years before entering private business, serving as executive vice-president of Cuneo Press. Thereafter, he served as president of Combined Paper Mills and as director of the National Tea Company. He was a member of the Salvation Army advisory board and head of the Associated Consultants of Wheaton, Illinois. As a prep school student, Fischer submitted a poem to Poetry magazine that caught the attention of the magazine’s founder and editor, Harriet Monroe. His poem was subsequently published. He published five more poems in Poetry and in 1985 published a collection of poetry entitled An Aged Man Remembers April, which he dedicated to Monroe. You can sample more of Fischer’s poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Genesis 45:3-11, 15

Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Luke 6:27-38

Prayer of the Day: O Lord Jesus, make us instruments of your peace, that where there is hatred, we may sow love, where there is injury, pardon, and where there is despair, hope. Grant, O divine master, that we may seek to console, to understand, and to love in your name, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Luke 6: 27-31.

It was the Sunday after September 11, 2001. Smoke was still rising from the Pentagon and what remained of the Twin Towers. All flights were grounded. Our state of shock was just beginning to wear off, only to be replaced by growing anger. On my way to church with my family, I passed a van in downtown Ridgewood, New Jersey where I lived at the time. On one side was written, “God bless America.” On the other, “God Damn Afghanistan, may you all burn in hell.”

I can understand the raw anger. As a bedroom community for New York City, our town lost more than a few people in the attack. Some of the cars of our loved ones were still parked in front of the commuter rail station where they had been left on the morning of September 11^th. Their owners would never return to claim them. I should also say that there is nothing wrong in expressing anger and sorrow. The Book of Psalms is filled with prayers seeking not merely salvation from enemies but God’s punishment for them, often in very graphic and horrible images. See, e.g., Psalm 137. But however much the psalmists might have liked to see their enemies punished, they knew enough to leave that responsibility to God. And that, Saint Paul reminds us, is where it belongs. Romans 12:19. For our part, we are to show only kindness to our enemies, thereby overcoming evil with good rather than allowing ourselves to be drawn into the cycle of vengeance and so being overcome by evil. Romans 12:20-21. So, too, Jesus’ teaching in Sunday’s gospel could not be clearer. Violence, even in self defense, is not an arrow in our quiver when confronting enemies.

I have been asked many times how I can morally justify my pacifism. I have been barraged with numerous hypotheticals, i.e., “what would you do if a crazed serial killer were lunging at your child with a knife?” I have repeatedly been confronted with the “Hitler question” or some variation of it, that is, “So, you think the world should have stood by and done nothing while Hitler slaughtered the Jews?[1]Would you just let the Nazi’s take over Europe? Would you let the Japanese march right over us?” I don’t have answers to these questions. But the question I would pose in response is this: hearing the words of Jesus in Sunday’s gospel and knowing the life Jesus lived and the death he died, how can I claim to be Jesus’ disciple without being a pacifist?

My pacifism does not derive solely from any particular chapter and verse of scripture. It is Christologically based. Jesus did not merely call upon his disciples to turn the other cheek. He did so when struck, beaten and spit upon. Jesus did not merely tell his disciples to offer up their shirts when their coats are demanded. He gave up his last stich of clothing to the soldiers who crucified him. He gave up his last few loaves and fish to the hungry crowd. Most significant of all, he did not unleash the angelic army that might have rescued him and he refused to allow his disciples to take up the sword in his defense. So I have to ask, if it is not permissible for a disciple to employ violence for the purpose of defending the Incarnate Son of God from torture and death, when is it ever permissible?

To those who might call me unrealistic, dreamy and out of touch with reality, I will plead guilty to an even greater offense. I am a fool. As Paul points out in his letter to the Corinthian church, this “weak” God who endures the agony of the cross rather than employ armies of angels in self defense is “foolishness” to the nations of the world (the gentiles) who cannot imagine a world without justice, law and order enforced by the threat of violence. I Corinthians 1:18-25. Yet, foolish, impractical and hopelessly idealistic as it might be, such is the wisdom of God, such is the power of God and such is the way of Jesus. “Whoever serves me must follow me,” says Jesus. “And where I am, there will my servant be also.” John 12:26. When it comes to circumstances seeming to call for the use of violence, we need not ask “What would Jesus do?” We only need to remind ourselves of what Jesus did.

As I said before, I don’t have an answer to the “Hitler question.” I am not convinced that I need one. I am not at all sure that it is the job of Jesus’ disciples to tell Caesar or Joe Biden how to run their empires. Jesus is not in the business of empire building and maintenance. Perhaps his disciples should not be in that line of work either. Maybe it is time for the whole church, particularly that part of the church residing in the United States, to re-evaluate the symbiotic relationship it has allowed to develop between itself and the nation states within which it resides. Maybe we should begin to consider what it would mean for the church to be what it says it is, namely, one, holy and catholic. Perhaps the church should be less concerned with transforming America into a kinder, gentler empire. Maybe we should be more concerned with being transformed into a transnational community formed by the mind of Christ and mirroring the great multitude consisting of all nations, tribes and tongues described by John of Patmos in the Book of Revelation so that the Body of Christ and God’s gentle, just and peaceful reign become visible to the world. Revelation 7:13-17. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,” says Jesus, “if you have love for one another.” John 13:35. In this community called church, the mystery of the gospel is revealed: that the universe is held together not by law and order under the threat of violence, but by love that would rather die than kill.

Here is a poem by Wilfred Owen ripping the glorious façade of patriotic romanticism off the naked horror of war. As the clouds of war gather once again, this time over eastern Europe, we would do well to contemplate what we clinically refer to as “military action” actually entails and ask ourselves whether the sacrifices we so freely make for the maintenance of empire are really worth the price.

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.[2]

Wilfred Owen (1893–1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced by his mentor, Siegfried Sassoon, and stood in contrast to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by other war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Owen enlisted with the British armed forces in 1915 and fought in the First World War during which he was seriously wounded. His experiences inspired several poems graphically portraying the horrors of war. Upon recovering, he returned to the front, though he might have honorably remained at home. His decision was motivated less by patriotism than his passion for unmasking the grusome realities of the war. Owen was killed in action in the fall of 1918, just one week before the Armistice. You can read more about Wilfred Owen and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

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[1] In point of fact, that is pretty much what the world did do. The United States rejected the immigration application of Anne Franke’s family and turned back a ship with almost 1,000 Jewish refugees from the port of Miami due to “security concerns.” I doubt the rest of the world would have batted an eye if, instead of embarking on the mad warpath of world domination, Hitler had been content to keep his army at home and murder the Jews within his borders.

[2] Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. Quotation from the Latin poet, Horace, meaning, “It is sweet and fitting to die for the homeland.”

SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Jeremiah 17:5-10

Psalm 1

1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Luke 6:17-26

Prayer of the Day: Living God, in Christ you make all things new. Transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace, and in the renewal of our lives make known your glory, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“But woe to you who are rich,
   for you have received your consolation.” Luke 6:24

We all love the beatitudes. But what of these “woes”? Once again, Jesus is on a collision course with core American beliefs. After all, isn’t wealth what the American dream is all about? Don’t we teach and believe that in America it is possible for any ghetto orphan with determination and a dream to rise up and become the next Bill Gates? It is axiomatic that America is the land where hard work is rewarded. Wealth is the just reward of honest hard work and thrift. To suggest otherwise is unpatriotic and smells of communism, socialism or welfare state decadence. There is no excuse for poverty in America. If you are poor, it is because you are lazy, lack initiative or have made bad decisions.

Jesus takes a different view. According to Jesus, the poor, the hungry and the outcast are the chief beneficiaries of God’s just, peaceful and gentle reign. The rich? Not so much. Today’s gospel is but a reprise of Mary’s song in the opening scenes of Luke’s gospel, where she declares:

“[God] has shown strength with his arm;
   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty.” Luke 1:51-53.

Jesus will further illustrate this declaration by way of his parable about the Rich Man and Lazarus. Luke 16:19-31. There the declaration of Mary and the Woes in today’s gospel are graphically fulfilled. The great reversal comes with a vengeance and the rich man, who has always been on the topside of the great divide between rich and poor suddenly finds himself at the bottom. And note well that Jesus nowhere tells us anything about the moral standing of either character in the parable. We are not told that the rich man was greedy, dishonest or cruel. Nor are we told that Lazarus was virtuous, godly or kind. All we know about the two individuals is that the anonymous rich man was rich and Lazarus poor. In the new age Lazarus, who has known only poverty, is comforted. The rich man is in agony. “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.” If one thing is crystal clear, it is that God is unconditionally, unequivocally and wholly on the side of the poor against the rich. Call it socialism, call it fomenting class warfare, call it whatever else you like. But there it is.

Here on the Outer Cape we don’t have poor neighborhoods, blocks of rundown public housing or tent cities of homeless people. For that reason, we often do not see the poor among us. But they are there. They drive from miles off Cape to clean our homes and offices each day. They live in cars parked in the parking lots of restaurants and shops that are closed for the season. In warmer weather, they live out in the national forest. This I know because I have come across the remnants of their encampments-sleeping bags under tarps surrounded by personal affects. Our paths seldom cross and, when they do, our lives almost never intersect. The existence of the poor, their struggles and their pain is foreign to those of us whose refrigerators and pantries are full, for whom shelter and warmth is assured and for whom a car breakdown is merely a nuisance and not a financial catastrophe.

Nonetheless, I have on occasion gotten to know some of these people in a small way. There is a woman in her sixties I will call Natasha who lives at a trailer park in North Carolina for most of the year. She comes up to the Cape in the summer time to clean offices and work in the busy seafood joints that are ever in need of employees. She shares a rented room with two other women doing much the same. Natasha says the money is good and very much needed by her family back in Jamaica. She doesn’t know whether she is in the country legally or not. “Don’t seem to bother anyone else so why should I worry about it?” she says. “I live here forty years and never broke no laws or made no trouble.” But Natasha misses her family. She worries that if she tries to go back and visit, she might not get back into the country. “So I’ll wait to see them when I’m ready to go back for good.”

There was a shy teenage boy who lived for a while in his car in a church parking lot near our town. I never met him but understand that he was turned out of the house by his parents when he came out as gay. The pastors of the congregation were at a loss as to how to help him. Technically, he was a runaway and the solution from a law enforcement standpoint would have been to bring him back home. But that was obviously problematic. Taking him to a homeless shelter where he would have had no adult supervision or protection was also fraught. So arrangements were made for the boy to stay with members of the congregation pending a more permanent solution. But before any such solution could be formulated, the boy disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as he had arrived.

Then there is a young man in his late thirties I’ll call Chet. Chet lives in his van which he parks in the driveways of summer homes during the winter, sometimes with and sometimes without the permission of the owners. In the summertime he parks overnight in lots for the Wellfleet beaches. That is against the law but the local police know that if they roust him out of one parking lot, he will just drive a few miles down the road and park in another one. So they mostly leave him alone. They have bigger fish to fry than Chet. Chet is an avid surfer. On any given morning when the surf is up, summer, winter, spring or fall, you can spot him on his board riding the waves. Chet has no regular job, no retirement account and no health insurance, but that doesn’t seem to bother him. He may be poor from our perspective, but he doesn’t see himself that way. “I got the best life,” he told me. “I’m right where I want to be doing what I love. Doesn’t get much better than that.” Chet doesn’t worry much about his future either. “I’m going to keep on surfing till I’m old and gray,” he says. “I’ll probably die out there someday,” he says looking out over the ocean. “But hey, we all got to go sometime. And I’d rather die out there than on a bed in some nursing home.”

These encounters have made me aware of how little we know and understand about the people living their lives on the margins of our world. In many ways, their poverty reveals our own. We are indeed poorer for not having heard the stories of the poor, their heroism, their courage and their stubborn determination to survive and thrive. Woe to us, for we have been living our lives on the precipice of a gulf dividing us from those most precious to God’s heart. Woe to us, for we are on the wrong side of God’s future. In truth, the great chasm between the rich man and Lazarus is not of God’s making. We constructed that chasm ourselves with our own greed, callousness and indifference. In alienating our poor sisters and brothers, we have alienated ourselves from Jesus. But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. If we made that chasm between ourselves and the poor, we are capable of unmaking it. And there is still time. There is time for the mountains to be leveled and the valleys filled in; time really to see the poor among us, not as human failures or mere social problems, but as the lens though which we fully comprehend and know Jesus.

Here is a satirical poem reflecting, alas, the attitudes we often harbor toward the poor.

A Rich Man’s Prayer

God bless the beggar,

fill his dirty cup with change.

God bless the lunatics

whose ravings are so strange.

God bless the runaways

lurking in the subway.

God bless the sad eyed girl

who sells herself for money.

God bless the drunkard

who can hardly even stand.

God bless the junky

with the trembling, shaky hand.

God bless the prisoner.

May he someday soon be free.

God bless all suffering souls

and keep them far from me.       

Source: Anonymous

FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Isaiah 6:1-13

Psalm 138

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Luke 5:1-11

Prayer of the Day: Most holy God, the earth is filled with your glory, and before you angels and saints stand in awe. Enlarge our vision to see your power at work in the world, and by your grace make us heralds of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’” Isaiah 6:8.

From my first year in high school I looked forward to preparing for ministry. I longed to delve deeper into the scriptures and to share their treasures with God’s people. I looked forward to preaching the gospel and leading the people of God in living out its good news through acts of compassion, justice and reconciliation. In many respects, my yearning echoed the words of the prophet: “Here am I; send me!” There was just one problem. Unlike Isaiah, I had not heard God’s call. I had not “seen the Lord,” whatever that means. No seraphim ever purged my lips and no booming voice ever said to me “Go.” I never experienced anything leading me to believe that God had called me to the work of ministry. I wanted it. I was passionate about it. I thought I might be good at it. But was that enough?

I struggled with doubt about my calling throughout my college years, dropping briefly my double major in religion and classical languages for an education major. I pondered whether perhaps my calling might rather lie in something like social work and explored that option briefly. But somehow, I always found myself back on the ministerial track. When I entered seminary, I was surrounded by people my own age who were confident in their sense of call. My class consisted of many women who, against centuries of opposition to their ordination and systemic inequality in denominational politics, pursued confidently their sense of call. There were also in my class many older students who had given up lucrative and stable careers to follow their call to serve as ministers of word and sacrament. They had some powerful stories to tell about God’s drawing them to seminary. I had nothing comparable to say regarding my call-assuming I even had one.

My first pastorate at a small congregation in Teaneck, New Jersey went well enough. I enjoyed preaching and leading worship, teaching confirmation, hospital and home visitation. Community outreach and evangelism, always a challenge, was nonetheless exciting and rewarding. Still, I wondered, is this really where I am supposed to be? After five years, I resigned my call to enter law school. As I explained to my congregation at the time, I was not leaving the ministry of the whole people of God. I was just leaving the ministry of word and sacrament. I figured that if God had any objections, God could speak up for a change and tell me so. I accepted God’s continued silence as, if not approval, at least lack of objection. For the next twenty-two years I studied and then practiced law in the State of New Jersey. If making partner within my first five years at the firm I joined and winning more cases than I lost makes for success, then I was a successful lawyer. I had found my niche if not my calling. That should have solved my problem.

It did not. I never quite escaped the orbit of pastoral ministry. I was called upon regularly by pastors needing supply preachers during vacation and by churches with pastoral vacancies. The congregation I was attending at the time arranged to call me as a part time assistant to the senior pastor and so I remained on the clergy roster even as I was pursuing a full time legal career. Throughout this period in my life, the need for supply preachers in the state intensified and I found myself filling in at churches throughout northern New Jersey for two or three Sundays out of every month. Then one day I felt a yank on the thread tenuously holding me to parish ministry.

It happened one evening in a hospital. I had just finished up a deposition for a medical malpractice case my firm was defending. Such procedures are frequently held in hospital conference rooms in order to spare medical professionals being questioned the inconvenience of having to travel to our office. I was passing through the lobby on my way out the door when I heard a woman’s voice behind me. “Excuse me, pastor,” she said. “Could you take a few minutes and pray for my husband. He’s in the ER. We think he had a heart attack.”

“Of course,” I replied and followed her through the labyrinth of hallways leading to the emergency room. When I we got to the entrance, the security guard stopped us. “Miss, I see you have a visitor pass. What about you?” he said turning to me. “I’m a pastor,” I said without hesitation and somewhat to my own surprise. It suddenly occurred to me that there was nothing to identify me as clergy. I was wearing a suit and tie-standard attire for an attorney. I wasn’t carrying anything that could be mistaken as a Bible or a communion kit. Yet somehow, I was recognized as a pastor. [1] Furthermore, I had not thought of myself as a pastor since resigning my last full time parish. I hardly thought of my supply work as full fledged ministry. If questioned about my profession, I always identified myself as a lawyer. “OK,” he said. “Go ahead.” So we proceeded to the room where the woman’s husband was placed pending admission. I prayed with them both. I then realized that what I thought was, at best, a side hustle represented who I was at the deepest level. I recognized my call. Within weeks, I was in conversation with my local bishop, received an invitation to sit with a local congregational call committee-and the rest is history.

In fact, I had had a call from the beginning, even if I lacked ears to hear it. From this vantage point in my days, I can see the wind of the Holy Spirit directing me through the maze of life’s many possibilities, past the obstacles and through the detours leading to where I am. But I see that divine guidance only in retrospect and I cannot help but wonder whether the same was also true about the prophet. Could it have been that Isaiah’s call was not given by a blinding revelation in the immediacy of a single experience? Might it rather have been the poetic product born of reflection on a lifetime of experience? Could it have been that, in the ruins of a defeated land and among the scattered remnant of an exiled people, just beginning to turn toward the prophet for understanding of the terrible things that had happened to them, Isaiah finally found the purpose and significance of what occurred on that day in the temple, when he and so many others gathered following the death of a great ruler as the storm clouds of war were gathering?

The truth is, all children of God have a call from God. But that call is God’s baptismal work and becomes visible only by its unfolding in time. In the Book of Exodus, Moses asks to see God’s glory. But God replies that no mortal can see God’s face and live. Yet God does not leave Moses with nothing. God instructs Moses to hide himself in the cleft of a rock. God will then pass by, placing God’s protective hand over the rock until God passes. Then God will lift the divine hand and Moses will catch a glimpse of God’s back side. Exodus 33:17-34:7. Perhaps that is how it always is. Perhaps even prophets cannot know God’s intentions, God’s will or God’s design for their lives except in retrospect. [2] That seems to have been the case for Jesus’ disciples throughout John’s gospel where the evangelist tells us twice that only after Jesus’ death and resurrection do the meaning of his words and actions become clear. E.g., John 2:22; John 12:16. Maybe that is what Saint Paul means when he tells us that we walk by faith and not by sight. II Corinthians 5:7. God’s back side is all we ever see of God this side of eternity and God’s intent for us can only be seen in the rear view mirror. Yet God’s past faithfulness makes it possible to proceed confidently into the future, even when we cannot see what lies ahead. Our lives are, after all, God’s project. What God begins, God can be trusted to finish. Philippians 1:6.

Here is a poem/prayer by the great pastor, teacher and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer exploring the stew of conflicting emotions, self understandings and motivations at work within us and affirming the assertion that, whatever we might be and whatever direction our lives may take, we are finally God’s project.

Who Am I?

Who am I? They often tell me
I step out from my cell
calm and cheerful and poised,
like a squire from his manor.

Who am I? They often tell me
I speak with my guards
freely, friendly and clear,
as though I were the one in charge.

Who am I? They also tell me
I bear days of calamity
serenely, smiling and proud,
like one accustomed to victory.

Am I really what others say of me?
Or am I only what I know of myself?
Restless, yearning, sick, like a caged bird,
struggling for life breath, as if I were being strangled,
starving for colors, for flowers, for birdsong,
thirsting for kind words, human closeness,
shaking with rage at power lust and pettiest insult,
tossed about, waiting for great things to happen,
helplessly fearing for friends so far away,
too tired and empty to pray, to think, to work,
weary and ready to take my leave of it all?

Who am I? This one or the other?
Am I this one today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? Before others a hypocrite
and in my own eyes a pitiful, whimpering weakling?
Or is what remains in me like a defeated army,
Fleeing in disarray from victory already won?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest me; O God, I am thine!

Source: Letters and Papers from Prison, (c. 1953, 1967 and 1971 by SCM Press, Ltd.). Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident. He was a key founding member of the Confessing Church which rejected the Reich’s effort to impose Nazi ideology into its teaching. His writings on Christianity’s role in the secular world have become widely influential. In addition to his many theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Hitler’s euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel prison for one and a half years. He was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp. Bonhoeffer was accused of being associated with the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, tried along with other accused plotters and hanged on April 9, 1945.

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[1] Though it is tempting to attribute this woman’s recognition to some pastoral “aura” I was projecting, the greater probability is that she recognized me from one of my many supply preaching stints throughout New Jersey. In any case, what I found striking was this sudden incursion of the call I had given up on into my now comfortable life as an attorney.   

[2] I am indebted for this insight into the Exodus story to author Mary Doria Russell and her book Children of God, a fascinating science fiction epic with deep spiritual themes. In one of the final chapters of her book, her character John Candotti remarks, “I wonder now if [the story of Moses and God’s glory] isn’t really about time? Maybe that was God’s way of telling us that we can never know His intentions, but as time goes on….we’ll understand. We’ll see where He was: we’ll see His back.” Russell, Mary Doria, Children of God, (c. 1999 by Random House Publishing Group) p. 428.

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Psalm 71:1-6

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Luke 4:21-30

Prayer of the Day: Almighty and ever-living God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and love; and that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” Luke 4:25-27.

It is not clear exactly when the crowd at Jesus’ synagogue went sour on Jesus. But somehow, they went from amazement “at the gracious words that came from his mouth” to wanting to stone him to death. Some commentators suggest retranslating “amazement” as “indignation” and “gracious” as “arrogant.” Personally, I think that is a stretch. But be that as it may, it is obvious that the synagogue audience was further inflamed by Jesus’ observation that God’s favor is frequently poured out upon those considered well outside the scope of God’s covenant promises. That goes against our natural human tendency to identify God with “us,” with “our people” and with “our country.”

I learned first hand just how deep this tribalizing, racializing, nationalizing of God runs when I placed the above passage from Leviticus on our church sign. I did that in early 2017, just after the Trump anti-Muslim ban went into effect wreaking havoc to the great satisfaction to his supporters. Within hours after the message went up, I got an anonymous phone call from an irate individual who accused me of betraying Christianity and undermining the president. A couple of my members took me aside to point out that this message was probably offending a lot of people in our community. It did not matter much that the message on my sign came directly from the Bible anymore than it mattered to Jesus’ audience that his examples came directly from the scriptures. Religious hate takes from the Bible only what it thinks it can use and disregards the rest. I should probably be thankful that no one tried to stone me.

God’s love for the poor, the vulnerable, the outcast and the outsider fairly echoes throughout the scriptures. From God’s promise in Genesis to make Abraham’s and Sarah’s descendants a blessing for all nations to John of Patmos’ vision of Gods new creation peopled by persons of every nation, tribe and tongue, the point is made that God shows no favoritism, knows no national boundary and respects no distinction of race, class or gender. Inclusiveness is a biblical fundamental, albeit ever so unpopular among so many who claim the Bible as their ultimate authority. A prophet who declares that the promises of God’s salvation have come is welcome among his own-until he begins to suggest that salvation might extend beyond his own. That is when the stones begin to fly.

Israel struggled throughout the biblical narrative with the temptation to view itself as a people blessed with privilege rather than privileged to bless the nations of the world. So, too, the church has had to fight the temptation to view itself as having for its own possession the privilege of God’s salvation rather than privileged with the task of proclaiming God’s salvation to the world. Nowhere is that struggle more visibly illustrated than in American Christianity. The lurid and bizarre examples of Christian nationalism and evangelical Trumpism that must of us mainline progressives find so troublesome has its roots in a deep seated conflation in our collective consciences of Christian religion and American mythology. In short, we are all more American than we are Christian. What else can explain the covenant between politics advocating punitive measures against refugees fleeing to our land for their lives and Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan? It can only be that the claim of nation, race, blood and soil runs deeper than the baptismal claim transcending all of these distinctions. As the popular saying goes, “blood is thicker than water.”

According to the faith in Jesus we profess, the opposite is true. Water is thicker than blood. Our baptismal covenant calls us to a higher loyalty than the claims of family, tribe, culture race and nation. As Saint Peter reminds us, “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” Acts 10:34-35. The neighbors Jesus calls us to love and to serve live on both sides of every humanly drawn border and that call takes precedence over every nation’s interests in preserving, protecting and maintaining such borders. That is the truth of the gospel grounded in scripture. For all those who find it offensive to their politics, we can only suggest that they get themselves another politics-or another savior.  

Here is a poem by Tsitsi  Ella Jaji reflecting upon the struggles of the alien in our midst. Is there any question as to how Jesus would have his church respond to these folk trapped in the bureaucratic machinery of our broken immigration system and subject to so much public hostility?       

Document for U.S. Citizens Who Have Never Applied for a Visa and Have Had It Up to Here with Those Loud Aliens Who Go On and On about Some Letter

It is not like going to the bank.

There are no hard candies in a basket made in China,
and no Kleenexes on the counter.
There is no refund if someone forgets to wish you a good day.

There are no chairs for the aged,
no toys for two-year-olds with earaches,
no supervisor to speak to in case of the
Absurd.

There are no meal vouchers if it takes all day,
no list of local hotels with a negotiated rate.
No one wants to know if you are a doctor.

Plastic is not magic. Seals are not signs.
Your cousin-brother’s wedding is not relevant.
Hell, there is no such thing as a cousin-brother.

And it is always your fault: not enough planning,
the wrong color passport, the misplaced stress
in a word.

Source: Beating the Graves, Tsitsi  Ella Jaji (c. University of Nebraska Press, 2017.) Tsitsi Ella Jaji is an associate professor of English at Duke University. Her expertise is in African and African American literary and cultural studies. Tsitsi’s interests include music, poetry, and black feminism. She previously taught at University of Pennsylvania. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities/Schomburg Center, Mellon Foundation, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, and National Humanities Center. Her poems have appeared in Harvard Review, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day series, Black Renaissance Noire, Almost Island, Prairie Schooner, Bitter Oleander, and others. You can learn more about Tsitsi Ella Jaji and her many literary contributions at the Duke University website.

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Luke 4:14-21

Prayer of the Day: Blessed Lord God, you have caused the holy scriptures to be written for the nourishment of your people. Grant that we may hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that, comforted by your promises, we may embrace and forever hold fast to the hope of eternal life, through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

“Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen’, lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground. So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” Nehemiah 8:6-8.

“And [Jesus] rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’” Luke 4:20-21.  

Last summer I read an article published in the Christian Century by Matthew Schlimm, a professor of Old Testament at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary entitled “Violent Texts.” Schlimm begins his thoughtful reflection by recounting a discussion he had with his young daughter who, upon receiving her first Bible, happened upon Deuteronomy 20 and, more specifically, the following admonition:

“But as for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded, so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the Lord your God.” Deuteronomy 20:16-18.

Why, asked this elementary school age girl, who had been taught from infancy that God is loving and merciful, does the Bible, which is supposed to be God’s word, have God commanding God’s people to kill whole populations of cities, including small children? As I read about Professor Schimm’s struggle to respond to his daughter’s question, it occurred to me for the first time that putting the Bible into the hands of impressionable young children might not be a good idea. Can you imagine the outcry in any community where it became known that the local elementary school was distributing a book to its students promoting genocide, describing gang rape in lurid detail and normalizing polygamy and sexual slavery? Yet our churches routinely hand out Bibles to Sunday School children, give them as gifts to confirmands and include them in the children’s section of their libraries. Nobody bats an eye at that because, after all, it is the Bible. Yet, clearly, there is material in the Bible that is not fit for the eyes of children.

The Bible is a nuanced book as layered and complex as the human condition out of which it arose and to which it addresses itself. It requires interpretation as both the gospel and our lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures illustrate. I believe that Martin Luther was greatly mistaken in thinking that placing the Bible in the hands of the public would dispel the abuses of the medieval church and make the truth of the gospel obvious and clear. The Reformation Luther sparked proved to be a mixed blessing. While it gave rise to many faith traditions that have reformed and enriched the church catholic, it also spawned a host of bizarre and dangerous cults appealing to the worst human traits. In our twenty-first century American culture, the Bible has become a source of ammunition in a political culture war for power and dominance having little to do with Jesus and the gentle reign of God he proclaims. The Bible is routinely used as a club to bludgeon, shame and exclude in the name of God. In the hands of the wrong people, the Bible is a dangerous book.

None of this is to say that children should not be taught the biblical narrative or that troublesome texts should be expunged from the Bible. Nevertheless, as with everything else in life, what we share with children should be determined by their levels of development and maturity. When the nation was attacked on September 11, 2001, I told my children what had occurred. I did not, however, show them footage of the people who jumped out of the windows of the Twin Towers to escape the flames or the charred bodies of those who went down with the plane that crashed over Pennsylvania. Nor did I give them lurid details about threats made against Americans by Al Qaeda. I emphasized that while some evil people had done a terrible thing, there are good people all over the world, that we are all looking out for one another and that they should feel safe and secure. That was far from the whole truth, but it wasn’t a lie. It was as much of the truth as my children were able to absorb at the time and as much as they needed to hear.

Just as we should not be placing Bibles in the hands of children without a thought to how they will be read and understood, we should not leave the Bible’s interpretation up to any individuals who decide to take it upon themselves. God knows we have seen no shortage of individuals who, wrenching passages of scripture out of context and arranging them to their own liking, have constructed religious justifications for systemic racism, persecution of sexual minorities and all manner of state violence. Evangelical Trumpism proclaimed by the likes of Franklin Graham, Mike Huckabee, James Dobson and Scott Lively come to mind. As Saint Peter reminds us, “no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.” II Peter 1:20. Just as scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit, so it must be interpreted by the Spirit. Our lesson from I Corinthians reminds us that the church of Christ is not a voluntary organization of independent individuals. It is a body of interdependent members, all of which are responsible to one another and subject to Jesus Christ as their head. Thus, I can no more read and interpret the scriptures on my own terms and independent of the church’s input and guidance than a hand severed from the body can shuffle a deck of cards. The Bible is rightly interpreted only within and through communities of faith. Accordingly, even when I read the Bible privately, I never read it alone. I always read the scriptures in dialogue with Athanasius, Boethius, Augustine, Aquinas, Theresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, Martin Luther, Hildegard von Bingen, Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King, Jr., Phyllis Trible, James H. Cone, the pastors, teachers and colleagues whose influence has shaped me.

We need to be clear about what the Bible is and how its message is mediated. While some believers maintain that we as Christians are a “people of the book,” I think it is more accurate-or at least as accurate-to say that the Bible is the book of a particular people. Without the Jewish people and the Church, the Bible would be nothing more than an historical curiosity, such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead. It would be of interest to archeologists and historians of ancient religion, but of no relevance to anyone else. The Bible is given meaning by the life, witness and ministry of the communities in which it evolved and which it has formed. These communities, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, bear the responsibility of interpreting God’s word in and through the Bible. I would add that we are also responsible for speaking out against the abuse of our scriptures by political leaders and nationalistic pseudo Christian organizations and demagogues advancing hateful ideologies and agendas.

In the final analysis, we read the Bible because we find ourselves in it-cowards denying our Lord; martyrs putting our lives on the line for him; clueless disciples who follow Jesus without quite understanding why; mystics who grasp, however briefly and incompletely, the truth, beauty and goodness that is God; doubters longing to touch mysteries forever beyond their grasp; believers who walk by faith rather than by sight; people driven by violence, lust and greed; people inspired by love, hope and the vision of God’s gentle reign. The biblical narratives, prayers and teachings show us who we are and what we might yet become. They remind us that our stories, twisted, unfinished and painful as they may be, are the material out of which God is fashioning something beautiful, something we name as the reign of God, the new creation, heaven, the new Jerusalem and eternal life-though these terms can only scratch the surface of what it means for God to be “all in all.” I Corinthians 15:28.

Here is a poem by Jeffry Skinner about finding oneself in literature that reflects in some respects the experience of finding oneself in the Biblical narrative.  

The Bookshelf of the God of Infinite Space 

You would expect an uncountable number,
Acres and acres of books in rows
Like wheat or gold bullion. Or that the words just
Appear in the mind, like banner headlines.
In fact there is one shelf
Holding a modest number, ten or twelve volumes.
No dust jackets, because — no dust.
Covers made of gold or skin
Or golden skin, or creosote or rain-
Soaked macadam, or some
Mix of salt & glass. You turn a page
& mountains rise, clouds drawn by children
Bubble in the sky, you are twenty
Again, trying to read a map
Dissolving in your hands. I say You & mean
Me, say God & mean Librarian — who after long research
Offers you a glass of water and an apple — 
You, grateful to discover your name,
A footnote in that book.

Source: Poetry, December 2015. Jeffry Skinner is an American poet, writer, playwright and emeritus professor in the Department of English at the University of Louisville. He is editor of two anthologies of poems, Last Call: Poems of Alcoholism, Addiction, and Deliverance; and Passing the Word: Poets and Their Mentors. Skinner’s poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Nation, The American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Georgia Review and The Paris Review. These poems, along with his plays and stories, have earned him grants, fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Howard Foundation and the state arts agencies of Connecticut, Delaware and Kentucky. You can sample more of Jeffry Skinner’s poems at the Poetry Foundation Website.

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Isaiah 62:1-5

Psalm 36:5-10

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

John 2:1-11

Prayer of the Day: Lord God, source of every blessing, you showed forth your glory and led many to faith by the works of your Son, who brought gladness and salvation to his people. Transform us by the Spirit of his love, that we may find our life together in him, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“You have kept the good wine until now.” John 2:10.

According to our gospel lesson, Jesus produced at least 120 and perhaps as much as 180 gallons of wine. That is a lot of wine for what must have been a modest wedding reception. And it was good wine, too-not the box variety. John the Evangelist tells us that this was Jesus’ first sign that God provides freely and abundantly all that we need, not merely to survive but to thrive. And that is good news for a generation convinced that we are running out of everything and that we do not have enough of anything. We have been convinced that the world is a shrinking pie among a growing number of hungry mouths to be fed. If you are smart, you will grab your slice before it is all gone. That is why we cannot afford to provide health care and housing for our poor at home, sanctuary for people coming to our shores fleeing violence and starvation or relief to needy populations around the world. The world simply cannot afford the poor.

Jesus would have us know that it is quite the other way around. The world can, in fact, provide more than adequately to feed human need. It cannot, however, afford to feed the bottomless pit of human greed. The earth and its ecosystems are not threatened by our basic needs for food and shelter. They are threatened rather by an economic system that survives by exploiting greed for profit, creating ever more markets for luxury goods and services designed to stimulate an insatiable thirst for “more.” This unrestrained pursuit of bigger homes, flashier cars, more exotic vacations and more sophisticated gadgets to feed corporate gain is finally unsustainable. Put simply, the world cannot afford the rich. The prophets of the Hebrew scriptures understood this well as did Mary the Mother of our Lord who sings of the day when God will level the field:

“[God] has shown strength with his arm;
   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty.”  Luke 1:51-53.

The good news for a world convinced it is running out of everything is that it does, in fact, have enough and to spare. This lesson, graphically illustrated during the wedding at Cana, will be repeated at the feeding of the of the five thousand, with the healing of the man born blind, the raising of Lazarus and, most compellingly, in the resurrection of Jesus. When it seems that the tank is empty, the road at a dead end and no way forward exists, God supplies for the need, opens up new possibilities and reveals a way through the impenetrable darkness we could not have foreseen on our own. For our part, we need simply to believe and trust. “We walk by faith and not by sight” as the Apostle Paul reminds us. II Corinthians 5:7.

Faith, however, is not a fatalistic resignation to what is waiting for God to fix it. As the Apostle James reminds us, “faith without works is dead.” James 2:17. It is because we believe that God is capable of providing all we need to live abundantly that we can afford to live generously. It is because we believe that God provides all that we need to live well that we can respond faithfully to the call for reparations to people of color for past and present injustice and inequality. It is because we believe that the earth is the Lord’s that we resist the temptation to guard jealously humanly drawn national borders and welcome the stranger into our midst. It is because we believe that God’s grace is inexhaustible that we dare to hope for a better future when all the indicators are to the contrary. As Martin Luther puts it, “Faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing.”[1]

In this vein, I recall a visit I made to an aged pastor in a Brooklyn nursing home during my internship. He was a delightful gentleman from the Haugean pietist tradition with a deep faith and a quick wit. On parting, he always reminded me, “remember to say your prayers.” “Will do,” I always replied. One day I added on, “and you too.” “Oh, I’ll pray alright,” he replied. “That’s about all that’s left of my ministry.” Then he added, “and the funny thing is, I’ve never felt more productive!” This old child of God understood that, even as he drew near to the frontiers of death and had seemingly so little to offer, the good wine keeps on flowing and God always saves the best wine for last.

This ancient Passover liturgy reflects both the gratitude for and confidence in God’s generosity that should be reflected in our lives.

Dayenu (It Would Have Sufficed)

If He had brought us out from Egypt,and had not carried out judgments against them – It would have sufficed!I

f He had carried out judgments against them,and not against their idols – It would have sufficed!

If He had destroyed their idols,and had not smitten their first-born – It would have sufficed!

If He had smitten their first-born,and had not given us their wealth – It would have sufficed! Dayenu, it would have sufficed!

 If He had given us their wealth,and had not split the sea for us – It would have sufficed!

If He had split the sea for us,and had not taken us through it on dry land – It would have sufficed!

If He had taken us through the sea on dry land,and had not drowned our oppressors in it – It would have sufficed!

If He had drowned our oppressors in it,and had not supplied our needs in the desert for forty years – It would have sufficed! Dayenu, it would have sufficed!

If He had supplied our needs in the desert for forty years,and had not fed us the manna – It would have sufficed!

If He had fed us the manna,and had not given us the Shabbat – It would have sufficed!

If He had given us the Shabbat,and had not brought us before Mount Sinai – It would have sufficed!

If He had brought us before Mount Sinai,and had not given us the Torah – It would have sufficed! Dayenu, it would have sufficed!

If He had given us the Torah,and had not brought us into the land of Israel – It would have sufficed!

If He had brought us into the land of Israel,and not built for us the Holy Temple – It would have sufficed! Dayenu, it would have sufficed!

Source: Hebrew Children’s Songs; Translation source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayenu

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[1] I understand that there is some doubt as to whether Martin Luther actually said this. I am not overly concerned with that. I am reminded of the day I came home for Thanksgiving during my freshman year of college, filled with all the heady arrogance that goes with youth and a little bit of knowledge. At that time, I informed my mother in an erudite show of collegiate pride, that her favorite quote of Winston Churchill was not actually spoken by him. Without missing a beat, Mom replied, “Well, if he didn’t say that he should have.”

BAPTISM OF OUR LORD

Isaiah 43:1-7

Psalm 29

Acts 8:14-17

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Prayer of the Day: Almighty God, you anointed Jesus at his baptism with the Holy Spirit and revealed him as your beloved Son. Keep all who are born of water and the Spirit faithful in your service, that we may rejoice to be called children of God, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

 “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Luke 3:22.

One ought to hear in these divine words an echo of those spoken by the same God centuries before to Abraham: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” Genesis 22:2. God is offering up God’s only Son as a sacrifice, not to satisfy some divine metaphysical necessity for the punishment of sin, but to fulfill God’s intent from the dawn of creation to “become flesh” and to “dwell among us.” John 1:14. If the Incarnation reveals God’s passionate desire to draw us to God’s self, the Passion Narrative illustrates God’s determination to see that incarnational intent through to the end-no matter what the cost.

I have frequently used the story of God’s command for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in baptismal sermons. That might strike you as unduly macabre, but it helps cut through the excessive, suffocating “cuteness” that always threatens to swallow what is supposed to be a life and death matter. After all, what else are we doing in baptism than offering up a human sacrifice? We are essentially tying the destiny of the baptized to the destiny of a man who got himself crucified. And for those of us who baptize infants, they have no more say in the matter than did poor Isaac! Believe it or not, I once turned to the baptismal family during the sermon, all of whom were sitting in the first front pews, and nearly shouted, “Are you all really OK with this?”

I could have retired years earlier if I had a dollar for every time I have heard people say of their children, “I just want them to be happy.” I don’t believe I have ever said that to or about my children because that is not all or even chiefly what I want for them. I want for my children to be kind, just, honest, merciful, forgiving, generous, courageous and faithful. I want my children to be passionate for justice, ready to put themselves between the most vulnerable among us and the jaws of oppression that would exploit them. In short, I pray that my children will fulfill the baptismal vows I made on their behalf to “learn to trust God, proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace.”  

Naturally, I do not wish unhappiness for my children. But I know that living faithfully into the gentle reign of God will likely bring them into conflict with a culture that measures success in dollars, an economy that runs on greed and politics driven by hateful ideologies. Honesty, integrity, courage and compassion can get you fired, imprisoned or even killed. Discipleship can rob us of all the hallmarks of happiness. There is a reason why Jesus told his disciples that following him meant taking up the cross. It was not an empty metaphor. So, yes, I would prefer that my children be happy. But if unhappiness is the price they must pay for following Jesus, so be it. There is more, much more to the life God would give us than mere happiness.

Here is a poem that captures the baptismal hope I have for my children and all the people I have baptized over the years.

Your Calling

Let no one tell you, girl,

that the mountain is too high,

the evil too deeply entrenched

the valley too steep

or that it’s too far to the sky.

Let no one say, my child,

that your dreams are too big,

that you are too small,

that what your heart knows is right

can never be and so ignore its call.

Let no man convince you to be practical

or chide you for lacking common sense.

For it just may be that God’s been waiting

endless ages for someone

blind to conventional wisdom,

someone bold enough to be good

rather than merely successful,

someone brave enough to be compassionate

instead of simply strong,

someone who would rather die

for a good cause than live for none at all.

So ignore all words of caution

and shut out all well meaning advice.

Silence the timid voice of warning

and listen with your whole heart to the call.

Anonymous   

SECOND SUNDAY OF CHRISTMAS

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Psalm 144:12-20

Ephesians 1:3-14

John 1:1-18

Prayer of the Day: Almighty God, you have filled all the earth with the light of your incarnate Word. By your grace empower us to reflect your light in all that we do, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14.

Christmas for Sesle and me did not go as we expected. Our plan was to host the holiday festivities at our house in Wellfleet with my son, his wife and our two grandchildren. Though she suffered a severe spinal cord injury in May of this year that left her nearly completely paralyzed, Sesle was making a remarkable recovery. She was walking again and had regained the full use of her hands. We were looking forward to a joyous and celebratory observance of the Nativity.  But on the evening of December 1^st, after an active day of cooking, worship and visiting with  friends, Sesle began to experience severe chills, high temperatures and slipped finally into unconsciousness. She was rushed to the hospital by ambulance where she spent a week in the ICU fighting for her life against septic shock. She was discharged from the hospital two weeks later to an acute care facility-otherwise known as a nursing home-where she is now undergoing physical therapy to reclaim the progress she fought so hard to achieve since her accident in May. So we spent Christmas together in a double occupancy room opening our gifts, listening to our church’s online service and chatting with our children by telephone.

I have been reflecting a great deal on the Word made flesh this season during which I experienced two very different manifestations of flesh. One version came to me through our roommate’s television set. She was watching a station showing non-stop, back to back Hallmark Christmas movies. The flesh on the screen was nearly perfect. Petite women, immaculately groomed and airbrushed to perfection shared the screen with equally well endowed, dressed and made up men acting out tales of romance, family drama and the magical effects of Christmas that seem somehow to make everything come out right. This was flesh seemingly immune to aging, deformity and imperfection. These were people who inhabited an enchanted universe of Christmas trees, ugly sweaters and skin as white as the snow falling in nearly every scene.

The flesh on our side of the screen looks a lot different. On our side of the screen flesh is frequently paper thin with age and ravaged by disease and bed sores. The flesh surrounding us is wracked with pain and often inhabited by confused and terrified minds crying out for attention from a medical system too strained to be attentive. The flesh we meet on a regular basis is worn by nurses, CNAs, therapists and other nursing home staff overworked, underpaid and often treated abominably by their corporate overlords. The flesh I have seen this Christmas resembles more the wounded body of the crucified Jesus than the fresh and tender flesh of the newborn Christ child.

I take comfort in knowing, however, that God is incarnate on my side of the screen and that I have indeed seen his glory. I see it in the devotion of frazzled nurses and aids who, exhausted as they often are, still find time to go the extra mile in caring for their patients. I see it in the face of a woman who seems not to recognize even members of her family, but still wears a tender and welcoming smile for them and for all who come into her orbit of attention. All around me I am witnessing “glory as of the father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” Just as the wounds of Jesus become in his resurrected body the beautiful symbols of God’s love for the world, so the suffering flesh in our nursing home community is aglow with redemptive moments through which the gentle reign of God shines through. The Word has indeed become flesh, remains flesh and will redeem all flesh. Joy to the world. The Lord has come.

This Christmas was not the Christmas I planned. It is not the Christmas I would wish on anyone else. But it was the Christmas I needed and perhaps the most wonderful I will ever know.

Here is a poem by Jane Kenyon about a Christmas disrupted by illness.

Christmas Away From Home

Her sickness brought me to Connecticut.
Mornings I walk the dog: that part of life
is intact. Who’s painted, who’s insulated
or put siding on, who’s burned the lawn
with lime—that’s the news on Ardmore Street.

The leaves of the neighbor’s respectable
rhododendrons curl under in the cold.
He has backed the car
through the white nimbus of its exhaust
and disappeared for the day.

In the hiatus between mayors
the city has left leaves in the gutters,
and passing cars lift them in maelstroms.

We pass the house two doors down, the one
with the wildest lights in the neighborhood,
an establishment without irony.
All summer their putto empties a water jar,
their St. Francis feeds the birds.
Now it’s angels, festoons, waist-high
candles, and swans pulling sleighs.

Two hundred miles north I’d let the dog
run among birches and the black shade of pines.
I miss the hills, the woods and stony
streams, where the swish of jacket sleeves
against my sides seems loud, and a crow
caws sleepily at dawn.

By now the streams must run under a skin
of ice, white air-bubbles passing erratically,
like blood cells through a vein. Soon the mail,
forwarded, will begin to reach me here.

Source Collected Poems by Jane Kenyon (c. 2005 by the Estate of Jane Kenyon; pub. by Graywolf Press). Jane Kenyon (1947-1995) was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She attended the University of Michigan in her hometown and completed her master’s degree there in 1972. It was there also that she met her husband, the poet Donald Hall, who taught there. Kenyon moved with Hall to Eagle Pond Farm, in New Hampshire where she lived until her untimely death in 1995 at age 47. You can read more of Jane Kenyon’s poetry and find out more about her at the Poetry Foundation Website.

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Zephaniah 3:14-20

Isaiah 12:2-6

Philippians 4:4-7

Luke 3:7-18

Prayer of the Day: Stir up the wills of your faithful people, Lord God, and open our ears to the preaching of John, that, rejoicing in your salvation, we may bring forth the fruits of repentance; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” Luke 3:8.

John the Baptizer does not mince words. “Think you’re special because you are a descendant of Abraham? A baptized Lutheran? A charter member of the congregation with deep roots in the community? God doesn’t give a flying fruitcake for your roots. In fact, the ax is about to fall on the roots of all fruitless trees, however deep, noble and well established those roots. It’s fruits, not roots that God cares about.”

Small wonder John’s audience is shaken to the core. “What shall we do?” they cry out in despair. John’s answer is almost too simple and direct. He does not direct them to a set of spiritual exercises, call them to a life of strict asceticism or the performance of some difficult heroic act. This isn’t rocket science. Share your food and clothing. Stop using your position of power for exploitation and personal gain. This sounds like simple common place morality.

But it is in the common place that one most frequently feels the pinch. The pastor of the congregation in which I grew up used to tell the story of a young man eager to join the communist party. The party leaders asked him a series of questions. “What would you do if you owned two houses,” they asked. Without hesitation, the young man answered,

“I would live in one and donate the other to the party.”

“And what if you inherited one million dollars?” they asked.

Again, without hesitation, the young man answered, “I would keep only what I needed to live on and give the rest to the party.”

“And what if you had two pairs of shoes?” they asked. Now the young man was at a loss for words. Obviously, he had two or perhaps more pairs of shoes and was not eager to part with any of them. If there is a moral to this tale, I suppose it is that we find it much easier to make great hypothetical sacrifices than real ones, however small they might be. Those, however, are the ones John is calling for: the extra coats in our closets, the food stuffed in our pantries, the income we frequently refer to as “discretionary,” the extra bedrooms in our homes, the excess real estate, endowments and funds held by our churches and whatever else we can unburden ourselves in order to fill the valleys of poverty, level the mountains of excess wealth, dismantle injustice and smooth the way to equity and wellbeing for all people. See Luke 3:5-6. That is what repentance looks like.

Repentance bears fruit. If it doesn’t, it isn’t repentance. It isn’t enough simply to confess one’s sins and feel sincere regret-though that is often a starting point. God knows that we white American Christians have good reason to regret our historic complicity with our nation’s legacy of slavery and the continuing curse of systemic racism left in its wake. We have good reason to lament the disparity in wealth, employment opportunity, access to health care and educational access between ourselves and the increasing number of impoverished people among us. But that is only the beginning. As author Marlena Proper Deida Graves points out in her reflections on this gospel lesson, … “producing fruit in keeping with repentance, as John compels us to do, means making amends. With the Holy Spirit’s help it means refusing to continue down destructive, death-filled, and toxic paths. It means choosing life in all its vulnerability, fragility, and glory-life in Christ. Such a life is a full life (John 10:10). Repentance in all its forms brings us life, healing, shalom. When we confess our sins to one another and pray for one another, we will be healed (James 5:16).” Christian Century, December 1, 2021, p. 20.

We and our churches have a tremendous capacity for producing fruit. There is, I know, a lot of hand wringing and consternation in mainline churches over the drop in regular congregational giving, loss of membership and increasing costs of maintaining our institutions. But these problems are more apparent than real when you recall that the original church could fit itself into a single room and that the only material stuff the church needs is a Bible, a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine and access to water. The rest is just frosting on the cake. Looked at from that perspective, my own Lutheran Church is filthy rich. Our concern should not be that we will run out of money, lose our sanctuaries or be forced to dismantle our institutions. Our concern should be that Jesus will return and catch us with money still sitting in the bank-along with that extra coat in the closet and all those cans of expired food in the pantry.   

So what shape might repentance take among us? What would John the Baptizer say if we had the temerity to ask him, “and we, what should we do?” We might try to explain to John that simply divesting ourselves is not a simple and easy task, that there are substantial legal, financial and operational obstacles to carrying out his radically simple demands. I suspect John would reply, “Who said anything about simple and easy? Since when has God ever called us to do what is simple and easy?”  

Here is a poem by Langston Hughes that speaks of freedom and liberation with the same passionate impatience we hear in the voice of John the Baptizer.

Freedom

Freedom will not come
Today, this year
            Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right
As the other fellow has
            To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.
            Freedom
            Is a strong seed
            Planted
            In a great need.
            I live here, too.
            I want my freedom
            Just as you.   

Source: Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (c. 1926 by Alfred A. Knopf, pub. by Random House, LLC, 1990). Langston Hughes was an important African American voice in the “Harlem Renaissance” of the 1920s. Though well-educated and widely traveled, Hughes’ poetry never strayed far from his roots in the African American community. Early in his career, Hughes’ work was criticized by some African American intellectuals for portraying what they viewed as an unflattering representation of back life. In a response to these critics, Hughes replied, “I didn’t know the upper class Negroes well enough to write much about them. I knew only the people I had grown up with, and they weren’t people whose shoes were always shined, who had been to Harvard, or who had heard of Bach. But they seemed to me good people, too.”  Today Langston Hughes is recognized globally as a towering literary figure of the 20^th Century. You can read more about Hughes and discover more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website (from which the above quote is taken).