THE FIRST SUNDAY OF CHRISTMAS - 2012


A MORE THAN HUMAN NAME

Today is the Feast of The Holy Name meaning of course our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, the name given above all other names, in heaven, on earth or under the earth, for our health and for our salvation.

Watching the holiday bowl games this past week and looking forward to today's pro games, while thinking about this homily, has brought to mind the origin of contemporary names. The personal names of players in particular, how often a first name appears to be a spelling mistake until one realizes, it is a creative combination of the mother and father’s first names or the sound an older sibling made in trying to pronounce the given name of a new baby in the family. Names historically identify the bearer as being part of a clan or tribe, a country or region of origin (for example, the name “Frank” refers to a fourth century Germanic tribe). Names relate physical traits (“Short”) or character traits (“Bright”). Names celebrate locations (“Rivers”) or occupations (“Smith”). Why not then hold up a profoundly human accomplishment of mutual conception, honoring the parents by creatively forming a new name, especially if the child is going to grow up and become a famous athlete!

Here we come to the defining difference in the naming of Jesus, the subject in today’s lectionary. The name of Jesus does not derive from geography or human activity or traits. The birth of Jesus is not even a human accomplishment. The difference here is divine, not human. The naming of Jesus is about the divinity of Jesus or, said in different words, it’s about God’s meaning and purpose and time in Christ. Follow the infancy story from the angel of the Lord’s announcement first to Zechariah and then to Mary, and then to the shepherds in the field. It becomes clear: the conception, birth and naming of this child is of God. God takes on flesh that we might take on spirit. It's all about God's grace, God's initiative of love, and only then is it a matter of faith, our response of love.

From the Gospel according to Luke - “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Luke’s gospel narrative declares three divine truths worthy of note on this Feast of The Holy Name. First, the divine inheritance of the bearer of the name Jesus. He will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. The appellation “Son of the most high” and the bequesting of “the throne of his ancestor David” are monumental in their divine significance. God in this action crosses over from heaven to earth, becoming resident among his creation and creatures in the person of Jesus literally, “God’s salvation."


The infancy narrative also proclaims the divine purpose of the child-bearer of the name Jesus. To rule over the house of Jacob for ever. The divine initiative and presence has a purpose. We remember and petition this purpose every day of our Christian lives when we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The kingdom of God has come in the person of Jesus, is here and now already in the person of Christ’s body - the church, and will come again in the final judgment of Christ’s return.

The third truth embedded in Luke’s gospel account is divine time or as Luke says, Of his kingdom there will be no end. Luke proclaims God’s time, what is called kairos, distinct from chronos or time as marked in this world. In chronos, we know the time and channel of all our games, who is meeting whom and when on the field. Kairos is God’s time of opportunity to meet heaven on earth. Kairos happens all the time and beyond time. It can't be scheduled or broken down into discrete manageable bits.

The God of the Incarnation is not Big Data to be programmed with algorithms and reduced to predictable occurrences. The divine conception, birth and naming of Jesus are all moments of God’s time, as is every moment of grace when we hear or look and see or touch God’s presence in this life. To invoke the sacred name of Jesus, not as a fan rooting for yet another player with a strange name, but as a believer in faith, is to enter God’s kingdom, to enter God's time being; at its best invocation it is to become part of that mystic sweet communion that is between God and humanity as intended from before the time of Adam and Eve.

This then is the name of Jesus, a more than human name, above all names in heaven and on earth, holy and blessed. It's time to embrace His holy Name.

THE THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER - 2011


THE ROAD TO EMMAUS . . . GETS COMPLICATED


A couple of disciples are walking the road to Liverpool. Their conversation is about recent happenings in Syracuse. I mean Emmaus and Jerusalem, but you get the size and distance intended. A charismatic personality has been executed. Exciting expectations have gone unfulfilled. Yet now, after this bloody weekend, there are strange goings on. Our two friends are trying to sort things out. It’s nothing different from what you and I do every day of our lives, especially when world shaking events occur.

What’s different however is this conversation, these questions, these emotions and thoughts, are about to be answered by a man unlike any other person who ever existed, or will ever again need to exist. The disciples, Cleopas and his companion, are in the presence of the risen Lord, post-resurrection, pre-ascension.

This is mystery. I’m not intending explanation here. I’m talking revelation. God is speaking to us in the Gospel according to Luke. Jesus meets the disciples and walks them through the Easter happening. Everything he says has a Word of God connection They get these connections because they, unlike us today, are steeped in the biblical narrative. They know the Old Testament promises. They expected a messiah to come. They thought they knew who it was. They thought it was Jesus of Nazareth. Yet he was crucified, dead and buried. Now, some of his followers are reporting amazing goings on. The man they are with is speaking of these happenings, and what it all means.

Now it’s time to ask. Where on your journey have you met the risen Lord? Really, this is a valid question, appropriate to the season of Eastertide. Where along your own road to Emmaus, have you encountered the spirit of the living God, risen from the dead?

I encountered the risen Lord, not for the first time, this past weekend. I woke up to an announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed. I immediately got out of bed and went downstairs, to listen to a television already on, reporting this news. Literally, as I stepped down the staircase I was conflicted with sadness. Who am I, a Christian, I thought, to celebrate the death of another human being? Yet, I admit it, I was relieved the man was dead, thanks be to God. And I know the reason, as my son said later from Arizona, “Hopefully, Cooper will grow up in a safer world.”

In that moment of conflicted emotions, happy to have a man possessed of evil killed, sorrowful at the death of another human being, I was in the presence of the risen Lord. My God and my all was speaking to me. Reminding me that we are not in the business of death. We are in the business of life. Our Christian purpose in life is to submit ourselves, our souls and bodies, to His teachings of peace and justice, and creation. We are to be loving, creative, reasonable, in harmony with creation and with God.

The best we can do in a world that is possessed of conflict and violence is to be open to the strange, the stranger in our midst; to listen, and to seek the truth; to allow the possibility that what we know is not enough, and still to be confident that because of the One with whom we have broken bread, and do so regularly, we are able to say, as we strive to think, and do, and say what is right in the face of what is insufferably wrong - “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

I will not fear the evil done or threatened me or mine or us, nor the evil done necessarily by me or mine or us in order to protect and secure our homes and families and nation from violence and harm. We will fear no evil, and we will act accordingly as we must. Why? Because You are with us and in Your Presence we are secure.

WEEK OF THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT, 2011

SAYING YES TO GOD'S CALL AND WILL

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but I know that’s not true. Gracie is my granddog. She lives in Arizona with Cooper and Pete and Sophia.

When I first visited Gracie in her home, Pete said, “Watch this,” as we got ready to go out. He told Gracie she had to go to her crate. Gracie suddenly laid down, rolled over, and became, with legs pointing up in the air, tongue lolling out and eyes closed, absolutely still. “Gracie, time to go to your crate.” Nothing, absolutely nothing from the dog.

“What’s the matter with her?” I asked.

“She doesn’t want to go to her crate,” said Sophia. “She’s playing dead. She thinks nobody can see her if she closes her eyes and doesn’t move.” Dogs are a lot smarter than non-dog owners think! We literally had to carry her to the crate, her acting as if she wasn't there.

Saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” really says more about people than dogs. It’s code for not having to learn new things, an excuse for the aging to avoid tough learning curves of new knowledge. You don’t have to be old to employ this strategy, either. You just have to drag your feet, or like Gracie, to roll over and act like nobody can see what you’re up to, when you’re really just afraid or too proud or blindly refusing to get with the program.

In this morning’s Old Testament God calls out to Abraham in the desert land of Mesopotamia, and says, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great - but you’ve got to go a great distance, and endure many trials.” The reading makes it sound as if Abraham just nodded and said, "Great, fine, which way do I go, God?" But you can bet Abraham thought about doing a Gracie. To Sarah, Abraham’s wife, God says, “You will bear a son.” The fact that Sarah was old, probably in her sixties at this time, made her doubt God’s promise. Sarah laughed at God.

In the Gospel reading, Nicodemus, a scholar and aristocrat among the Jewish people, has heard about Jesus, his wisdom and works. Nicodemus is curious, he's a scholar after all. His religious self secretly wants to believe the good news he is hearing. Yet like Thomas the Doubter Nicodemus must see it to believe it for himself. He equivocates. So Nicodemus sneaks a visit with Jesus in the dead of night, not wanting to be seen in public with him. Jesus calls Nicodemus on this cowardly behavior and confronts his attitude of disbelief.

Abraham, Sarah, Nicodemus, Thomas, you and I all have this much in common - our inability to give full assent to God’s call and will for our lives. We equivocate. Why, because the world doesn’t see God through the eyes of faith, and we are worldly people. We like to get the facts, negotiate, get the best deal possible. Our flesh does this to us, making us worldly wise.

Abraham though said yes; through him the people and nation of Israel, ancient and modern, came into being. Sarah did give birth to Isaac, symbol of God’s promise to those who believe in spite of themselves. Thomas falls down on his knees, having probed the wounds of the risen Lord, and proclaims, “My God, and my all!” Nicodemus goes away that night his soul in turmoil, yet tradition tells us he was with Joseph of Arimathea for the burial of Jesus and a witness of the resurrected Lord. That's the way it is with the spiritual life, you say yes, and blessings abound, and God can be very persistent in response to our foot dragging!

Is it possible for us, too, that we might be reborn, made new as if from our mother’s wombs, and become the spiritual children God has destined us to be? I hope so. I know this much, I have no intention of being a dog like Gracie, refusing to get with the program. I welcome the adventures of faith and obedience. I hope you do, too.

Lord, help us to be obedient to your call; and remain faithful in whatever you would have us do, wherever you would have us go, O God. Amen.

WEEK OF LAST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, 2011

BLESSING OUR LIVES

Bishop Adams visited St. Peter's this past Sunday. Teens were confirmed as their parents watched and celebrated with Chase, Hadley, Claire, Will and Sam. An infant, my grandson Cooper, was baptized.

Afterwards, the confirmands, Bishop and I stood for a group photo in front of the altar. The Bishop and I then stood at the baptismal font where we held up Cooper for a similar keepsake photo.

I am glad that we will have those pictures to remind us of this day when confirmands, baptisand, priest and bishop, parents and relatives, the people of God in this little upstate church stood together for something greater than themselves.

What connects you to your most important moments? How do you keep the times of your life that mean the most to you? How do you mark the highlights of your life? And more importantly, when you are gone, what will others know and think of you when they look at the markings of your life. What mark are you leaving? What mark are you living?

From a different perspective, where do you see God's maker's mark in your life's journey, past, now, future?

For me, a priest who was first and foremost an infant baptisand, I know God most palpably present each week in the Eucharistic exclamation - "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us! Therefore let us keep the feast."

We live in an age where individual experience is so highly valued and our values are so highly individual that there really is little that carries over time and connects us to our deeper selves, to others, to creation, to family or to nation, literally to our souls. We are losing the meaning and practice of sacrifice, and without sacrifice, we can have no hope going forward.

The ability to make meaningful connections beyond ourselves, beyond our own individual beings and interests, needs or desires, is what makes us truly human, vulnerable yet hopeful. Hope we are told in scripture comes from suffering. Where does your hope come from? My hope to carry on comes in the relationships of faith and family, both repositories of whatever offerings of sacrifice I am capable of making.

There are other sacrificial places of equal value where hope arises from shared and mutual enterprises. These holy places include art and performance, athletic skill and competition, intellectual and recreational interest, professional and business career, civic duty and volunteerism, military service, and others.

Wherever we invest ourselves, our souls and bodies, what matters is that we come out of what Mary, the mother of Jesus, called the "imaginations of our hearts" and take our stand with others in something more than narcissistic or utilitarian self-interest. One can readily hear Mary's voice of religious conscience supporting her son as Jesus fought the temptations in the wilderness, where he prepared to sacrifice his life for the sake of others.

Baptism and the other sacraments of the church are wonderfully and beautifully instituted by God to help us mark the great passages of life: baptism for birth. Eucharist for nurture. Healing for care. Confession for forgiveness. Confirmation for learning. Ordination for vocation. Marriage for community. A healthy church knows and celebrates these sacred passageways well and fully.

This past Sunday, we made a good observance of confirmation and baptism.

WEEK OF EPIPHANY 2, 2011

BLESS MY HOME

During the Epiphany season at St. Peter’s we invite parishioners to organize Home Blessings. Epiphany is a season of the church year that disappears between the cultural highlight of the Christmas holidays and the traditional spirituality of Lent, otherwise marked only by Federal holidays, Annual Meeting time and Super Bowl Sunday.

By encouraging Epiphany Blessings of the Home, we literally shine a new light into local homes and reconnect with the meaning of Christ’s coming into the world. In a word, Epiphany Blessings are joyful and formative. Motivations for this entertaining spiritual custom include a new home or recent relocation, a renovation or addition, a new family relationship or renewed hope, whatever it is that makes a Christian want to bring forth anew the Spirit of the Living God in the home. This is the pew side of things.

From the altar side of the conversation, taking the Spirit on the sacramental road is right in keeping with our 21st-century mandate to meet people where they are at (or in this case, where they live). Usually this adaptive approach to church refers to contemporary culture, new patterns of attitude and behavior, generational differences. Here though it harkens back to the ancient practice of sanctifying place. There's always a feeling of Orthodoxy when doing a Home Blessing and invariably leaves one wanting to go home and hang an icon and a sanctuary lamp in a corner. This urge is a sign of a universal need to be more deliberate and intentional in the aspiration toward holiness in our homes.

I commend Ephiphany Home Blessings for these reasons and okay . . . it's exciting to suddenly set off smoke alarm systems with dense clouds of incense. “Oh, dear, did we do that?” No, seriously, holy water works just as well!

WEEK OF CHRISTMAS 2, 2011


A WONDERFUL AND FEARSOME GIFT

When we read the Bible or listen to a reading from the Bible there is always a word from God the Holy Spirit hidden for us. Like a Christmas present under the tree, this word is laden with tradition, being typically wrapped around an historical account or within a dramatic narrative or dressed up in poetry or an ancient hymn. There it lies, hidden among the rest of the reading waiting for us to take delight in mysterious meaning.

Our task as believers is to find and open this hidden word and to unravel its content. In this way we delight in the word of God intended for our ears only. In this way we hear God’s call for us. If we ourselves are ready and willing, in this way we hear and obey, thus helping to fulfill God’s will in the world. This hidden word then is why we read the Bible. Only persons of faith, only those who properly worship at the Christ Tree, get this present. And what does God present us with, a wonderful or fearsome gift?

The word this morning is mercy. Mercy as in “compassion and forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm.” Mercy as in “an event to be grateful for, especially because its occurrence prevents something unpleasant or provides relief from suffering.” Mercy as in “a journey or mission performed out of a desire to relieve suffering; motivated by compassion.” The mercies of God, indeed, are too many and wonderful to contemplate in this morning’s Gospel reading of the Holy Family’s Flight into Egypt.

Joseph hears a merciful message from an angel of the Lord. The message is simple: get out of Bethlehem because King Herod has discovered where you are. Herod as a ruler is remembered in history as vicious, really merciless to his people. The prophecy says Jesus will grow up and become a King. Herod says over my dead body, actually over the dead bodies of all young male children in Bethlehem for he sends his troops to kill not only baby Jesus but the entire gender age group just to be sure. Among his recorded atrocities this was a relatively minor occurrence.

The Holy Family though escapes to Egypt, perhaps hiding in the Sinai peninsula among the Bedouin people until another message comes to them. By the mercies of God, Herod has died and it has become safe for Joseph to take Mary and Jesus home, though not to Bethlehem. Instead they head north, beyond the Sea of Galilee to relatives in rural Nazareth, again being warned in a dream. All this foretold in prophecy.

Here we come to the true hidden word. The mercy God intends is not about angels helping Joseph maneuver the Holy Family around deadly kings. The mercy God purposes is enfleshed in the person of baby Jesus. God's mercy has come to live among us in the person of baby Jesus. Jesus is on a mission of mercy. To grow up, live, teach, heal, work wonders, suffer, die and rise again on our behalf; in a word, to provide God’s people with relief from the predicament of being human or said in biblical language rescue humanity from the wages of sin that is death.

This holy present on the Second Sunday of Christmas is marked From God, with love; it is too wonderful and fearsome to contemplate except by faith.

WEEK OF ADVENT 2, 2010

AMBIVALENT EVEN FEELING QUILTY ABOUT MONEY?
A 13-MINUTE GROWTH EDGE

In 1960 Barrett Strong, a rhythm and blues singer out of Mississippi, gave fledgling Motown Studios their first hit recording - Money (That's What I Want) - with such irreverent lyrics as "The best things in life are free, But you can keep 'em for the birds and bees; Now give me money, that's what I want" and "Money don't get everything it's true, What it don't get I can't use, Gimme money, that's what I want." Little wonder that America at the end of the Booming 50's loved this song with a hearty, self-confident laughter.

Here's the Beatles' 2.53 minute cover of Barrett Strong's Money, on YouTube -



Still with me? 50 years later America is the Great Satan in the eyes of Islamic jihadists who not only don't want what we have but despise us for wanting such things that we value above all else. Our economy is in a shambles. Our national debt load is beyond support even unto the second and third generations. Our vision of the Great American Dream is no longer manifest, our destiny is in doubt.

Why have we come to this? Where have we gone wrong? How can we renew a right spirit within us? Where is our help to come from? Our predicament is not political or economic or even material in nature, arguably it is spiritual. We have lost the blessing of God and, though not for the first time in sacred history, there's a reckoning coming, indeed, it is already here; we would be fools to ignore or deny God's judgment.

Take 9.55 minutes more now, if you will, and listen to the spiritual wisdom and frank talk about money, biblical stewardship and our identity and calling as contemporary Christians, spoken to the people of God today by Walter Brueggemann, preeminent Old Testament scholar and prophet of American values, speaking in the first of an interview series done by Laurel Johnston, stewardship officer of the Episcopal Church. There is hope.