7th Sunday after Epiphany

Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18
Matthew 5:38-48

One pastor tells the story of two youngsters, Billy and Tommy, who dutifully attended to his children’s sermon on this lesson. Later at home, not so very long after the sermon, their mother heard bellowing and caterwauling loud enough to wake the dead. Into the kitchen came young Billy, hopping around on one foot, holding the other shin. In between sobs, Billy complained, “Tommy kicked me. He kicked me and he wasn’t supposed to. Pastor said he wasn’t supposed to kick me.” Hotly defending himself, Tommy shot back, “Pastor said ‘strike’ and ‘cheek,’ ‘turn the other cheek.’ He didn’t say nothing about not kicking your brother when he kicks you first.” Mom turned to Billy and said, “Did you kick Tommy first?” “Well yeah, but he wasn’t supposed to kick me back. Pastor said so.” (Adapted from Rev. Delmer Chilton, Lectionary Lab)

We have a way of hearing what we want to hear, seeing, interpreting, shifting things to our own advantage. Our lesson from Leviticus springs from that tendency. God gave his chosen people rules – rules to help them live together, rules to help them live in His favor – a stupendous number of rules. A brief perusal of Deuteronomy and Leviticus boggles the mind with the sheer quantity of rules. Only 10 of them -10 commandments- were carved, quite literally, in stone and carried down the mountain to the people. No other Gods, No idols, Keep the Sabbath. Honor father and mother. This shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal and so on. Still, if I trick someone into paying me extra, that isn’t stealing, really. If I hold wages an extra day in my own coffers – that’s not stealing – not if I eventually give it to them….

Leviticus tries to deal with the human tendency to push the boundaries of limits on our conduct in much the same way that we try to deal with persons who find loopholes in modern law – write more rules. Make everything fair and just and even.

A problem though…it’s possible you have noticed this as you have journeyed through your days…. Life isn’t fair.

There’s a story of a man who took great pride in his lawn. To his distress, despite the prodigious care he lavished on it, he found himself with a large and recurring crop of dandelions marring its perfection. Year after year he tried every method he could think of to destroy them. Still, the dandelions plagued him.

In desperation the man finally wrote a letter to the Department of Agriculture. He painstakingly enumerated all the things he had tried and closed his letter with the plaintive question: “What shall I do now?” In due course the official reply came: “We suggest you learn to love them.” (Adapted from Anthony de Mello, Song of the Bird)

Dandelions spring up unbidden. Enemies flourish. Abuse of power, anger, fear, injustice weed their way into the world. Rather than more rules, Jesus prescribes a transformative way of being.

“It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me,” Mark Twain quipped, “it is the parts that I do understand.” Jesus’s words are simple enough, but His counter-cultural message seems unsettling if not completely impossible. We as a culture and most of us as individuals want value for our expenditure of money or time or energy or emotion. We expect to exact retribution if we are wronged (although we studiously avoid responsibility if accused). It is tempting to ignore this preposterous demand Jesus presents, imagine Jesus doesn’t mean us – this couldn’t possibly apply in today’s world.

Who does this stuff? Allows insult, gives more than asked without hope of repayment, loves the enemy, prays for the persecutor – culminating in the ultimate absurdity “Be perfect”. Really? Perfect? Is that all? Just…perfect. Surely that foolish dictate alone gives us leave to ignore the whole mess…

Ah, but not so fast. Lutheran scholar David Lose points out a crucial observation. “The word we translate “perfect” is actually the Greek word telos and implies less a moral perfection than it does reaching one’s intended outcome. The telos of an arrow shot by an archer is to reach its target. The telos of a peach tree is to yield peaches. Which means that we might translate this passage more loosely to mean, “Be the person and community God created you to be, just as God is the One God is supposed to be.” (David Lose, In the Meantime, Where Faith Meets Everyday Life)

During WWII Corrie Ten Boom and her family hid Jews from the Nazis in occupied Holland. They were eventually caught and themselves sent to concentration camps. Corrie survived the war, and after the war became a champion for the cause of forgiveness. She explained to group after group that the world must forgive the Germans, not endorse their actions, but forgive them in order for the world to move on from the horror.

One night she spoke at a church in Munich, proclaiming to the world the need for forgiveness, preaching Christ’s forgiveness. After the talk, for the first time since the war, she saw an SS officer, one of her jailers, one of the guards complicit in the pain and humiliation and agony of the concentration camp. She later wrote,

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.” he said. “To think that, as you say, [Jesus] has washed my sins away!”

His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness.

As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. (Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place (Washington Depot, Connecticut: Chosen Books, 1971), p. 215.)

Jesus does not demand the impossible. Jesus offers transformation. Jesus offers compassion in the face of injustice, forgiveness in the face of corruption, love in the face of hate. As we offer to the world what Christ has given, it becomes known to us also and bit by tiny bit we are transformed, living into what God created us to be.

6th Sunday after Epiphany

Sirach 15:15-20
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
Matthew 5:21-37

The sermons you hear on a week to week basis are supposed to be posted on-line on the church website. But don’t go looking for my last couple, at least not for a day or two. As usual, I’m behind on getting them posted. The reason I’m behind on posting them, other than the unfortunate reality of never being quite caught up – the main reason, or at least the reason that gives me immediate excuse at any given time for delay, is that in order to post, the sermon requires a title. I have an awful time coming up with titles. There are some very clever, engaging sermon titles out there. I haven’t written any of them. One Lutheran pastor wrote the perfect title for today’s Gospel lesson, however, entitling his message “Things I Wish Jesus Had Never Said” (Delmer Chilton, Lectionary Lab)

This is the third week we have spent “listening” to the Sermon on the Mount. We have moved from the dissonant poetry of the beatitudes, to last week’s compelling metaphors of spice and light. Now we wade into this seeming morass of prison and eye gouging; dismembering and hellfire. This is not one of those lessons that we can look at through a scholar’s eyes and confidently assert that “If you read this in the original Greek, it sounds so much better”. I am assured by folks more scholarly than myself that reading the Greek does not help even a little bit – it still sounds violent and messy. (Amy Richter, Sermons that Work)

Since that is our Gospel world today, let’s talk about Sirach for a while.

Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus) is a work of ethical teachings from approximately 200 to 175 BCE written by the Jewish scribe Shimon ben Yeshua ben Eliezer ben Sira, inspired by his father, Joshua ben Sira. We don’t hear a great deal from this book. Part of the reason we don’t is that the book is not universally accepted as scripture at all. It is part of the Apocrypha – accepted by some denominations and not by others. The Anglican Communion accepts the Apocrypha for “instruction in life and manners, but not for the establishment of doctrine”.

If you choose, you can keep the commandments,
and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice.
He has placed before you fire and water;
stretch out your hand for whichever you choose.
Before each person are life and death,
and whichever one chooses will be given.

It’s all about choices. Choose fire or choose water. Choose life or choose death. And it all seems so simple when Ben Sira says it. Decide. Act faithfully or don’t. Live or die.

Jesus says the same thing, but Jesus gives life to the choices, depth to the law. Jesus intensifies the law, teaches us that it takes its meaning from relationship. Don’t murder. Yes. Don’t commit adultery. Yes. Don’t divorce (in Jesus’s day, divorce, a right of men only, left the man’s former spouse alone, disgraced and adrift without family, friend or resources). So, don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, and don’t leave a fellow traveller on this earth profoundly abandoned and bereft of all support. Yes. Yes. and Yes.

But these are examples, not revelations. Jesus’s underlying message is to offer the choice to live into the loving relationship with God and His creation that underlies the law.

One priest tells a story of a couple who had been married for almost 40 years. They were both known for their strong personalities, strong opinions and quick tempers. One evening saw them embroiled in yet another stormy altercation. Fuming, angry, and spent with the emotional toll of that argument along with all the other arguments, the wife opted to leave, just go. She went upstairs and began throwing things into a suitcase. As she packed, her husband placed another suitcase next to hers and started packing as well. Angrily she snapped, “Where in the world are you going?” Her husband responded, in an angry tone, “I don’t know. I am going wherever it is that you are going!”. (Story taken from a sermon by the Very Rev. Miguelina Howell, Sermons that work)

Anger is a part of our nature when we are threatened, physically, emotionally or psychologically. Physical desire is a part of our nature, well, pretty much any time in some cases. It allows our species to procreate, and often allows our relationships to deepen. We are not asked to prevent our emotions in the first place – that is not our nature. We are not asked to deny our emotions, stuffing them down where they merely fester and grow in unhealthy ways. We are asked to mindfully, lovingly, make a choice about how to direct them, to decide against self-centeredness, self-doubt, self-righteousness and exclusion.

Bishop Desmond Tutu wrote, “Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.”

We live in a polarized world. Maybe that has always been true, but the cries of polarization seem more strident than I have known in my lifetime and our technology serves to amplify them. It is nothing to “unfriend” someone (what an awful verb!) and hurling insults across the ethernet divorces the act from the impact. Showing empathy takes a back seat to demanding respect; compassion for others a backseat to controlling others. We can allow anger or desire or pain or differences to create a wall between us, or like the married couple above we can choose to live into love.

We, as God’s children, God’s servants, God’s field, God’s building, we as the Body of Christ – we have choices to make:

Build bridges or build walls
Serve God or serve self
Reconciliation or rift
Fire or water
Life or death

Whichever one chooses, will be given. Amen.

5th Sunday after Epiphany

Matthew 5:13-20

[Today’s sermon is
mostly taken from a sermon I preached in 2002. 
With a few modifications it’s probably a better sermon than any I might
write today]

Today’s Gospel contains two images that are so well known that we may take them completely for granted. We may even miss the meaning! “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world.”

When I say someone is the salt of the earth, I mean they are solid, steady. They do their work, they carry their share of the load, they’re reliable.

What I discovered, back in 2002 is that what Jesus meant may be quite different. For one thing, we take salt for granted. It’s always on the shelf in the grocery store, and we don’t use a lot of it at any one time. We don’t think of salt as a food item; it’s what we use to make most any food taste better.

Go back for a moment to 1st Century Palestine, though, and it’s a very different story. People had no electricity, no ice, no refrigerators. The climate was very hot and dry. Water was scarce and trees were scarcer. Salt is used not just to season food, but also to preserve it. It takes a lot of salt to preserve meat or fish.

Salt was so precious in those days that it was part of the pay for the soldiers in the Roman army. Hence the expression, “not worth his salt.” What are we paid for our work? A salary. The word salary comes from the Latin word for salt.

Have you ever been in the tropics or the desert? Have you ever been dehydrated? I once took a walk on a beach without considering that the beach was right on the equator. I left at sunrise and within a few minutes looked like a zen fountain, with liquid flowing down all my surfaces. I hadn’t even gone a half mile when I realized I was being stupid, sunrise or not. I returned to my hotel and spent the rest of the day guzzling water and rehydration salts. Salt is vital to maintaining fluids in the body.

Because wood was scarce, most villages in Jesus’ day had a communal oven where all the women baked their bread. This oven was made out of clay. The young girls of the village had the task of collecting animal dung, mixing it with salt, and making it into patties to dry in the sun. In the bottom of the oven was a slab of salt, on which the dried dung was burned to heat the oven.

Why salt in the dung and why a slab of salt? Because salt is a catalyst that makes the dung burn hot enough to bake bread. A catalyst is an agent that accelerates a reaction.

The other thing I discovered is that in Hebrew and Aramaic, the languages Jesus spoke, the word for earth and the word for clay-oven are exactly the same. This means our lesson today might have been translated, “You are the salt of the clay-oven.”

Eventually the slab of salt in the oven would lose its catalytic qualities. When that happened it was removed, broken up, and used as we might use gravel, to fill in a muddy spot in the road. A new slab of salt would be put in the oven.

Think again about what Jesus said to his disciples. “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored: It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

Now we can see more directly, as the disciples would have, the connection between the salt image and the light image. The salt is a catalyst that helps the fire burn brighter and hotter. And in those days the only light other than the sun or moon would have been fire or a flame. Jesus tells his followers that they are the salt, they are the flame, and that they must not hide their light.

Would anyone light a lamp in a dark house and then cover it up. No. You would put it wherever it will give the most light. So… Jesus says that to be a disciple is to be a catalyst and to be a light. Not only must we let our light be seen, we must also be the agent that makes the light shine brighter and hotter. And not just for our own light, but for those of others as well.

There’s an old joke among Episcopalians, that we are God’s frozen people – referring to our reputation as being terribly reserved and insisting on calm good order. We tend to be wary of excitement and enthusiasm. We come from a tradition that frowns on putting yourself forward.

Still, there’s no doubt in my mind that Jesus calls us to do just that. To be a catalyst, to give light to those around you, means you must own your Christian faith and be up front about it. We’re easier with doing that in deeds than we are in words. We are willing to try to live a Christian life as long as we just don’t have to talk about it!

I grew up in an Episcopal home where I was taught that it’s not nice to talk about religion – and this was taken just as seriously as not talking about sex or money! It took years before I could begin to put my faith into words.

But I ask you – when you look at what is happening in the world, or when you see what’s happening in Washington, or even what happens here in your own community, isn’t silence the same thing as acquiescence? Is keeping silent much different from saying OK? Do you believe Jesus calls us to be silent in the face of injustice, or bullying or crime? No. Sometimes speaking words is a necessary part of our Christian action, and sometimes we have to call a spade a spade.

It is possible to own our own beliefs, to let our light shine in words as well as deeds, without trampling on others. You can take a stand without condemning those who disagree. You just start your sentence with “I”.

“I think this is wrong. I don’t think this is fair to everyone. I am unable to participate. I cannot agree.”

And just maybe, your taking a stand will encourage others to do the same—not that it will change their beliefs, but that it will help them to voice their beliefs and act on them. That’s one way to be a catalyst.

Consider the economic crisis of 2008. I can’t help but wonder what might have happened at the big banks or the brokerage firms if anyone in the upper levels of management had said, “What we’re doing is wrong. I think this is dishonest.” I’m sure there were people involved who knew it was wrong but were afraid to say so.

Being a follower of Jesus is not a job for sissies. It takes courage and faith and daring, especially in a time like ours when the culture around us does not necessarily reflect the same values Jesus taught us. We must embody those values in what we say and what we do. Be the salt in your community; be the light as well. Live the life Jesus taught us to live and, when necessary, screw up your courage and speak the truth in love.

AMEN

EPIPHANY 2017

Matthew 2:1-12

[Today’s sermon was written by me, exactly ten years
ago.  I’m repeating it today because it
is one of my favorite sermons and Epiphany is my favorite season to preach.]

Imagine this: three old men traveling hard through treacherous lands, freezing in the mountain passes, broiling in the desert, traveling sometimes by day and sometimes by night, stopping only to sleep and rest the camels, eating jerky and dried fruit along the way, so as to lose no time.

These scholars from the east had seen a new star and divined its meaning. But how could they be sure? What if the star disappeared as quickly as it had arisen? What if they were too late? What if they were wrong?

They no longer told their story to fellow travelers met at an oasis or some resting place along the caravan route. They did not enjoy being laughed at, especially when they harbored their own doubts. Finally they rode in silence, too worn and tired for any conversation.

How must it have felt – to cross the Jordan, so close to their destination, and lift up their eyes to the jagged hills rising before them? That last climb, winding up and up and up to Jerusalem, past groups of Bedouin camped in the tiny valleys, must have seemed endless.

And what of that awesome sight, as they rounded the last curve, revealing the sight of Herod’s temple shining atop the temple mount, glittering in the desert sun?

At least the ride to Bethlehem after their meeting with Herod seemed no more than a moment, because the end of their journey was in sight and now they would know. They found their epiphany in a humble stable in Bethlehem and they gave the baby gifts in joy and thanksgiving.

Epiphany, as you know, means a showing forth, a manifestation, especially a spiritual truth or reality making itself felt or visible in the real world. It is a beam of light in the darkness, like the star the wise men saw. It’s the experience we have that makes something clear, like the cartoon character with the light bulb over his head. It’s that click we hear in our heads when we suddenly see the whole picture – when we finally "get it."

On this day, when we celebrate Epiphany, we acknowledge that the journey of the wise men to find the Christ child is also the journey of every child of God. Their journey is also our journey. We too seek to find the Holy, to validate our relationship to God, and to offer gifts of thanksgiving.

We, too, travel through treacherous lands. Our way sometimes leads through dry country, where hope drains away like rainfall in the desert, where we barely remember who we are or where we’re going or why. Sometimes we travel in high places where we can see the world laid out before us and doubts flee. We feel certain of our purpose and our destination.

In the dark of night we know cold and fear, yet we keep on, encouraged by the star we see when the night is clear. We make wrong turns and have to backtrack to try again. We travel miles only to find ourselves in blind canyons. We have to forge roaring mountain streams, despite our terror of being swept away, because there is no other choice.

Like the wise men, we seldom speak to other travelers about our purpose. We don’t tell, when we see or hear from loved ones after they die. We make no attempt to describe or explain our own small epiphanies: how a beam of sunlight once transformed me; how eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while sitting on a rock 3 billion years old gave me a glimpse of my connection to the entire universe; how the sight of a deer emerging from the woods, or the bump of a walleye against my lure, tells me all is right with the world; how the lap of waves against the hull of a sailboat as I fly in silence across the lake assures me that God is alive and well. We so fear the laughter of others that we seldom share our deepest experiences of joy.

But, ah-h-h, when we travel in the green valleys, where the water runs clear in the streams, the sun is warm and the breeze is cool, where the way is easy and the fruit falls from the trees, we feel certain that this is the life we are meant to live.

But in the end, we too must make the long trek up into that last range of mountains, one step after another, uncertain about what we will find, no longer even thinking, but only trying to find the stamina to keep on climbing – both hoping, and not hoping that this is the last steep part.

Only at journey’s end will we find our true home – and the gift we give will be ourselves, laid at the manger each Christmas, offered at the altar every Sunday, and returned to the Spirit at the moment we die.

As T.S. Eliot says, near the end of The Four Quartets:


“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

In our society we say to people, "Have a nice day." The Chinese used to say, "May you live in interesting times."

What I wish for us is this: a fascinating journey with one or two boon companions, full of peaceful and happy interludes, but with enough trouble and struggle to teach us what we must learn, and to give us zest and faith, enough zest to enjoy the good times and enough faith to face the hardships to come.

So I say: May we find the God we seek, and may we too arrive where we began and know the place for the first time.

AMEN

ADVENT 4, A

Isaiah readings for Advent

For all four Sundays of Advent we have read passages from the prophet Isaiah. What does the word “prophet” mean to you? How would you define prophet? What does is mean to prophesy?

Many people today think that to be a prophet is to predict the future. This misconception leads to drastic misunderstandings of the writings of the prophets. So let’s start with some definitions.

In the Biblical tradition of prophesy, prophets had three possible jobs:

1. To speak the truth to power: that is to tell rulers and priests and those at the top of society what is wrong with them or with their behavior. Remember how Nathan, the prophet, came to David and told a story of the rich man who stole a poor man’s pet sheep to kill for a dinner for the rich man’s table. By getting him to condemn the rich man in the story, Nathan tricked David into condemning himself for killing Bathsheba’s husband This is speaking truth to power.
2. To speak the truth in love to God’s people: that is to point out to the people the errors of their ways. This often includes telling them what might happen if they don’t wake up and fly right. The prophets do a lot of this, especially since God’s people go astray so often.
3. To give the people of God hope in dark days. This is the kind of prophesy we have been hearing all through Advent in the readings from Isaiah.

What’s important to understand is that these visions of better times are not meant as exact predictions of the future. They are painting a picture of the possibility of a better life, of a better world.

There has been much, mostly valid, criticism of Christians for reading back into Isaiah and other prophets, predictions of the coming of Jesus. This is very common among us, but it isn’t entirely honest to the text and the context in which it was written.

However, these passages from Isaiah have been read that way, because people can see that if the people who follow Jesus would act like him, the possibilities for a better life are almost limitless. So it makes sense to read these lessons during Advent when we are awaiting the return of the light into the world.

Like most of the other prophets, Isaiah has some dreadful things to say about the nation or the people who have gone astray, but he also has an incredible ability to inspire the people’s hope for the future.

On the first Sunday of Advent, we heard Isaiah’s vision of peace, how Israel would become a teacher of the nations: “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

On the second Sunday Isaiah tells us that somehow a shoot will come from the stump of Jesse, who was David’s father. In other words, somehow that Davidic kingdom will be revived. “The spirit of the lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. . .He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” This is a vision of hope not just for the Messiah, but for all who govern. It is the hope of living under a just government.

On the third Sunday, Isaiah assures us that God will come and save us. The desert shall burst forth in bloom, the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongues of the speechless will sing for joy. He goes on to describe a highway for God’s people to return to Zion, where sorrow and sighing shall flee away. This is a vision of the world transformed.

And today, we hear about a sign from the Lord – that a young woman is with child and shall bear a son and call him Immanuel, which means, “God is with us,” a hope for God’s presence with us in the world.

All of these Advent readings in Isaiah are of the third type mentioned above – meant to give hope to the people, to provide a vision of better times, of what might be, but not necessarily what will be.

What we’re hearing here is deep hope for the possibility of a better world: a world where the rulers rule with justice and mercy, a world without war, where people no longer suffer, a world where everyone gets along with everyone else, and where sorrow is no more.

This is indeed the hope with which we approach the coming of the Christ child. These hopes expressed by Isaiah in the ancient days of Israel are the same hopes we have for the world today. The life and ministry of Jesus contained many of these hopes as well. He taught us to turn the other cheek and not to seek vengeance. He healed the deaf and the blind and the lame. He told us not to be afraid. He showed us how to make the world a better place to live. He assured us that the kingdom of God was drawing near.

What we know that the early Christians did not know, is that the coming of Jesus into the world has not yet, even after 2000 years, made the world significantly better. Isaiah’s visions have not yet come to be. Jesus could only show us the way, could only start the process of redemption. He could not finish it by himself. He could only convey to us God’s intentions for us and for creation, showing us by his life and ministry how we might create a new reality. The rest is up to us.

So we need to hear the words of Isaiah, much as the Jews needed to hear them. As people of faith, we approach the birth of Jesus each year with a renewal of hope for the future. Maybe this time. .

Besides this sort of hopeful waiting, it seems to me that there are two ways of dealing with the fact that the visions of Isaiah and the promise of Jesus have yet to become reality. Each of the two ways has adherents in the Christian community today.

One way is to focus on the 2nd Coming as the solution – the final solution to the continuation of evil, injustice, and sorrow in the world. By clinging to this vision of divine intervention by God, one need only continue to believe.

The other way is to understand that we must carry out Jesus’s work in this world, that it’s up to us to live our lives in ways that will make a better neighborhood, that will convince others to do the same, and that if enough of us do this, the ideas will spread and change the world. It isn’t surprising that the first way is the one you hear about on television, but it is not the Anglican way. Creating peace, justice, and good will towards all people on earth is our job. As Steve Schaitberger used to ask us, “What part of all don’t we understand?” And as Tiny Tim said, “God Bless us every one!” Every one means NO EXCEPTIONS! AMEN

ADVENT 3, A

Isaiah 35:1-10, James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11

Have you ever had very high, or very specific expectations about a person or about an event, and then were so disappointed when the reality didn’t match those expectations? Think about it for a moment. How much was your experience of the reality shaped by your expectations? In other words, did your expectations ruin your experience?

Today’s Gospel is all about expectations, specifically John the Baptist’s expectations of Jesus. John is in jail while Jesus is carrying out his ministry in Galilee. John hears what he’s doing and begins to have doubts. That’s why he sends one of his followers to Jesus to ask, “Are you the promised Messiah or not?”

As he is wont to do, Jesus does not answer directly, but instead says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Clearly this is meant to suggest the passage from Isaiah that we also heard this morning and with which John would have been familiar.

How could John possibly be disappointed in Jesus, who is doing such amazing things? Well, it does depend, doesn’t it, on what John’s expectations were. So let’s step back a moment and look at what John has said to indicate those expectations.

We all know that John tells people to repent of their sins and to be baptized. Just keep in mind that this is a call to return to the path of righteousness and the rules of Jewish purity. He also says in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that the one who comes after him will baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire. In Matthew and Luke he also says, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

And also this: “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cue down and thrown into the fire.”

John expects Jesus to preach repentance, to preach judgment, and to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Clearly this wasn’t happening. In fact, quite the opposite — Jesus was eating with sinners, he wasn’t baptizing at all, and he occasionally said questionable things like, “but I say love your enemies.”

So John wonders if he made a mistake. By answering as he does Jesus tries to show him that his mistake was in his expectations rather than in his naming Jesus as the one so long awaited. In other words, John’s preconceived notions of what the Messiah would do were causing him confusion and doubt.

Jesus is not living up to John’s expectations. Jesus often does not live up to our expectations either. From this perspective, the lesson is perfect for Advent. So, who are you waiting for this Advent? What are your expectations?

It seems to me that what we expect to see in Jesus, what we expect God to be, is always filtered through our own experiences in life. To give you an example: I would expect that a child who is beaten or otherwise badly treated by his parents will grow up wanting justice for what he has suffered. At least, as a child he will need to know that someone, somewhere, some time, will call his parents to account for their behavior.

My grandson is in prison. I know that what he is waiting for is to be set free and to be forgiven. For the poor and the downtrodden, their greatest hope may be to be treated as human beings, people as fully human as the rest of society.

Who are you waiting for this Advent? You might all answer Jesus, but each of you might mean something different by that. Are we, like the people of that time, waiting for a Messiah to free us from oppression? Certainly not at the same level as they were. Most of us have never even experienced the kind of oppression they lived with every day under Roman rule, although some people are fearful now we may live long enough to experience similar oppression.

Who are you waiting for this Advent? If you’re suffering with either physical or emotional ills, you may well be waiting for a healer. In this age we haven’t much faith in non-medical healing, but maybe we’d like to, if only. . .

Who are you waiting for? If you’ve experienced poverty or loneliness, you may be waiting for someone to stand with you: someone who sees your suffering, understands your heart, and will be there to help you overcome the odds. Or maybe you want someone to reverse the scales, someone to help you win the lottery so you can lord it over others for a change.

If you are burdened by the weight of your bad behavior or living with the consequences of your bad choices, you may be looking for a Jesus who takes away your sins and your guilt. Or you may be looking for someone who will show you the way to overcome the past, to live fully into a brighter future. Or maybe you just want Jesus to change you.

Who are you waiting for? If you’re already having a good life, with few sorrows and troubles, you may be just waiting for someone who can show you how to live more abundantly – not with more abundance, but with more joy, more compassion, and more courage. Or maybe you’re waiting for Jesus to confirm that your good life is the result of your being good.

Who are you waiting for? Perhaps at this stage in your life, all you want is to be able to live peacefully – not pulled by ugly emotions like jealousy or fear, not worried by financial concerns or the other cares of life, and not too attached to the things of this life.

Our concern should be this world, not the next. Our question is not “When will Jesus come again?” Instead our question is “How can we help to bring the Kingdom of God into reality?” “How can we transform ourselves and our communities into a beloved community?” “How can we become God’s people in this place and time?”

These are the questions asked by the early church, which was founded and grew in a culture that was not friendly to it. We are essentially in the same situation today and that’s why the church at large is talking so much about being a “missional” church. It’s much easier to do mission when we quit worrying about numbers, when we quit worrying about the size of our Sunday School or how many new members have joined, or how many babies we’ve baptized.

Let’s not set up false expectations for ourselves, but instead do what we in fact know how to do – go out into the world to do what we can, leaving the rest to God. Go out into the world to make it a better place for everyone, and go out into the world rejoicing!

Advent 2, A

Isaiah 11:1-10

Matthew 3:1-12

The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

Isaiah had a way with words.

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.

In content moments, warm in my house, fuzzy blanket over my knees, children snuggled safely in bed, in those moments these words sound peaceful and joyous. And so they are, but the world into which they were delivered was anything but.

The Rev. Dr. Stephen Montgomery wrote, “These words from Isaiah were not spoken in a moment of reverie when the beauty of the mountain brooks and the serenity of the quiet pasturelands made the prophet aware of where it was all leading. He was not watching a dazzling sunset. He was watching the dazzling swords of the great and overpowering Assyrian army as they sliced their way through his native land of Palestine, leaving nothing but a trail of blood and agony. He was living through what has been called the first holocaust of the Jews. It occurred between 740 and 700 B.C.D. Five times during these 40 years did the Assyrian army, the vast and superior Assyrian army, stampede through the hill country of Israel working terror and destruction wherever it went.

With no regard for anyone’s culture, with no regard for anyone’s religion, with no regard for anyone else’s life, they came like a scorpion plague, devouring everything and everyone in their path. Over and over and over, the people of Isaiah’s Judah had been ravaged. The horrid sounds of war were ever familiar. The cries of pain seldom ceased. Who could plant a field and have any hope that it would survive to the harvest? Who could bear a child with a confidence that it would reach maturity? It was a horrible forty years, those years in which Isaiah lived.”

The people of Israel felt alone, bereft, frightened. Few have not felt echoes of their distress. In loss of loved ones, in the grief of an unwelcome diagnosis, in the waves of anger and cruelty that sweep across our country, in family discord or betrayal by friends, in witness of the poisoning of soil, water and air.

Into that distress Isaiah injects his message of hope, of peace. Effectively he proclaims the truism that God is God. War, power, fear – these things are not God. Anger, violence, greed – these things are not God. God is God and the promise of God is more powerful than the destruction, the fear, the isolation that seem to surround you.

They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.

John the Baptist also has a way with words, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

No matter how warm my home, how fuzzy my blanket, how safely snuggled my sleeping children, I cannot mold these words into the shape of peace or joy. One commentator referred to John the Baptist as “that awkward, smelly Advent cousin.” (Rebecca Kirkpatrick, Bread Not Stones) Each Advent 2, every year, there he is, camel hair clad, smelling faintly of honey with bits of locust leftovers in his unkempt beard, yelling out uncomfortable, unpopular, challenging threats. Yet the people flocked to him – they left their homes, their comfort zones, to brave the wilderness and hear a message of their inadequacy and vulnerability to judgement.

“A preacher put this question to a class of children: “If all the good people in the world were red and all the bad people were green, what color would you be?” Little Linda Jean thought mightily for a moment. Then her face brightened and she replied: “Reverend, I’d be streaky” (The Spirituality of Imperfection)

And so it is. We are streaky. We are lambs: bereft and alone in a dark world – clinging to the promise of the triumph of the love of God. We are wolves: secure in our strength, fed and clothed, snug in our tradition – simultaneously repelled and attracted by John’s strange voice challenging us to risk everything for change.

Isaiah speaks comfortingly, John barks a challenge – they preach the same message – know that the Kingdom of God is coming.

In a few minutes we will pray the confession together. This is a good thing, a recognition of what is not right in ourselves, our families, our communities, but if it changes nothing, it means nothing. Alice Walker wrote, “Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.”

“Repent!” calls John into the wilderness. “Metanoia” is the Greek. It has nothing to do with groveling or humiliation – It means change of mind. Turn around. Recognize the wrong yes, but do not stop there, mired in guilt or remorse – or possibly worse, smug in outward humility. There is work to be done. That wolf and that lamb are not going to take up housekeeping together until both are well fed and feeling secure.

One story of Martin Luther claims he decided to take Scripture at its word when he read in Luke, “Do not worry about what you are to say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say…”

Instead of working on his up-coming sermon for the Wittenberg Cathedral that Sunday, Luther worked all week on his commentary on the Psalms. On Sunday, he climbed into the high pulpit. He looked out over the sea of upturned faces. The Spirit did indeed speak to him. It whispered in his ear these words: “Martin, you did not prepare.” (Illustration from Alyce McKenzey)

It is Advent. The time of preparation. Emmanuel comes, thanks be to God – it is now for us to become the voice crying into the wilderness, making the paths straight, turning around, living a life in Christ, that Christ may live in us and in the world.

Advent 1, A

Isaiah 2:1-5

Matthew 24:36-44

There are those in this world, including some lifelong faithful Christians, even cradle Episcopalians, who consider Christianity an irrational, patched-together, illogical mish-mash of traditions, scriptures and human interpretation – human interpretation being a dicey business at its best. This season does nothing to dispel that notion. Today would, in fact, be a particularly good time for that point to be made, if one chose to make it. Consider: Today marks the first day of Advent – that extraordinary time in the Christian calendar wherein we as Christians celebrate the arrival of the New Year during the final weeks of the old year through a prayerful contemplation of the apocalyptic end times, which must be considered before meaning can be imparted to the birth which happened 2000 years ago, but for which we nonetheless urgently wait…again…

It sounds better when poets say it – T. S. Eliot:
“What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.” (Four Quartets, Section V)

We have become comfortable with Christmas, with the birth, the baby in swaddling clothes – one could easily argue too comfortable – the story has been sanitized and cutified beyond recognition.

There is simply no way to make today’s Gospel cute. “Two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.” These are the sorts of stark passages that give rise to the biblical dooms-dayers – always searching for the signs, the portents. They gave rise also to the notion of the rapture – made popular in the recent “Left Behind” series – in which, before the 2nd coming of the Christ, the good and faithful are to be whisked away into, well, somewhere good, leaving the rest of us sinners here to suffer the wrath of God’s judgment.

(On a side note, the notion of The Rapture did not exist prior to 1830 when Plymouth Brethren founder John Darby took a handful of cherry picked verses like this from the Gospels, Revelation, Daniel, and Thessalonians – possibly combined them with a vision experienced by 15 year-old Margaret MacDonald during a healing service, and established the entire notion.)

Some persons of faith embrace the coming of the end times with diligent attention and care. Unfortunately, humans have a tendency, when waiting for an event of great global and personal import, to live in a state of perpetual anxiety. All of life is subsumed in a fight or flight anticipation, unable to function in the world as it is now.

Conversely, those persons more ambiguous about the end times are tempted to a state of perpetual apathy – when an anticipated event has not arrived in 2000 years of waiting, its driving importance seems to wane. Eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage – these things again hold primacy.

Jesus’s Good News includes these disturbing, apocalyptic visions for a reason. Either Jesus was carefully building a fellowship consisting of untold centuries of dehydrated, starving, perpetually anxious insomniacs in no shape to care for themselves much less nourish the starving, protect the weak, love their neighbor, or sing to the glory of God, or Jesus meant to combat the historical apathy.

If you’ve never met one, the hippopotamus is a terribly cute animal. A giant, lumbering animal with cute little ears, fat cheeks and a crazy outsized mouth that opens so very wide and closes in a sort of permanent almost smile. Turns out hippopotami are not so cute up close and personal. They rank as the 6th most dangerous mammal to mankind (according to the Encyclopedia Britannica). Not nearly so dangerous as other humans, but dangerous nonetheless. Territorial and aggressive against any perceived threat, they are well worth a second thought in the proper setting.

Whitewater canoe champion and cancer survivor Juliet Starrett was canoeing through the Zambezi River in Eastern Africa when her canoe was disturbed by a previously unnoticed hippopotamus. “Not so much disturbed as exploded…she was paddling along one second and the next she was ten feet in the air above the water. …She looked down and saw the chomping jaws of the hippo turning her performance canoe into splinters. While in the air, Juliet says that she spotted the nearest shore and began swimming – while in the air!” (The Rev. Josh Bowman, Sermons that work). Juliet didn’t see the threat before it exploded under her, but was awake, aware, trained, and ready to move. That saved her life.

In His apocalyptic imagery, Jesus means to introduce awareness, vigilance, an urgency to live each day, each moment for God. As one commentator wrote, “The point is not to speculate about a day of judgement sometime in the future, whether at the end of all humanity or at the death of each individual, but rather to confront us with God’s radical claims on us here and now.” (John P. Burgess, Feasting on the Word)

“In days to come…the mountain of the Lord’s house…shall be established as the highest of the mountains”

“In the days to come.” The NRSV translates the words from Isaiah, “In days to come,” According to one minister and scholar, the Hebrew is more nuanced. “In the back of the days,” would be a better reading. “In the midst of the present.” would be even better. “Isaiah is suggesting that the present moment is ripe, or to use an appropriate Advent term, pregnant with God’s presence.”(Rev. Dr. Stephen R. Montgomery, Day 1).

Robert F. Kennedy said, “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

The swords are not yet plowshares; the spears not pruning hooks; nation rises against nation and neighbor against neighbor. Xenophobia, inequity, nationalism and normalized bullying thrive. Still, the potential for peace and justice and compassion exists in every moment. We must awaken to respond to even the smallest spark of hope blooming in the darkness.

Poet and priest John O’Donohue wrote, ”Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back. From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment. The eternal makes you urgent.” (Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom).

Jesus means to awaken souls. In the ending is the beginning – the birth of hope. We wait. Awake. Searching. Living in hope. Acting in love.
Amen

Christ The King Sunday, Year C

Luke 23:33-43

The election…is over. Thanks be to God. Thanksgiving fast approaches, and the snowfall seems to bring Christmas close (although the commercial enterprises began the celebration weeks ago now). Liturgically, we stand at the cusp of the old year and the new – Ordinary time ends today. The waiting, watching, longing time of Advent begins next week. The altar is draped in white for this last Holy Feast of the year, The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, more commonly referred to as the Feast of Christ the King or the Feast of the Reign of Christ.

That magisterial, grandiose title invites images of all sorts of pomp and circumstance – Revelations, perhaps (5.13). “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing,‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might for ever and ever!”

Except, of course, that is not what the Gospel described today at all…Luke plunges us instead into the dirty, gritty underbelly of Roman “justice” – sweaty and real and pathetic. Even one of the criminals nailed up next to the person we claim as king mocks and derides Him.

Into that setting, the power of this world against Him, naked, bleeding, tortured, deserted and dying Jesus introduces the Kingdom of God, His Kingdom of compassion, love and hope, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Anger. Fear. Distrust. Hate. Desperate clutching for wealth or power or status or station. These things did not begin in the 1st century. They did not die there either. Christ the King Sunday came into being in 1925, instituted by Pope Pius XI, essentially as a reaction against a perception that the attention of the world was turning increasingly to secular concerns. Pope Pius’ notion was to return the attention of his flock to God in Christ. Pope Pius died in 1939 with the end of his pontifical reign marked by vociferous opposition to Hitler and Mussolini.

Anger. Fear. Distrust. Hate. These things were not invented by the Nazis, nor did they die with Hitler. The U.S. election is over. Anger persists – anger by some at being figuratively dumped into a basket of ignorable deplorables, shoved to the side, disrespected and unrepresented. Fear persists – at the seeming normalization of hate and unchecked hostility.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has counted more than 700 cases of hateful harassment or intimidation in the United States since Election Day on November 8. Episcopal churches preaching inclusion have been defaced. Muslims, blacks, Latinos, political supporters of both sides have been threatened, harassed and physically attacked.

The phenomenon is not unique to the States. A Canadian clerical colleague shared this story of a family member’s friend named Janice. “…she was standing one day in a check-out line at a grocery store or drug store in Dundas. Beside her was the usual display of chocolate bars, mints and cough drops, tabloids and newspapers. Janice is black, and an older man just ahead of her – maybe in his 70’s and white, turned around to look at her, pointed to a newspaper in the display beside them showing a picture of the recently elected president of the United States, and said to her, “That’s why we elect people like that – to get rid of people like you.”

And the worst part of that story – to her who lived it, and to others who have heard it, is that no one in that line said anything.” (Brian Donst, Midrash.)

I don’t mean to suggest that the Donald Trump campaign or the bitter election process invented fear or anger or hatred or a sense of isolation in tumult – witness 1st century Roman Empire, 1930’s Europe. The unconventional campaign and unexpected victory did, however, expose those ugly realities in new breadth and depth.

On this, Reign of Christ Sunday, we are invited, in the face of a world torn apart along race lines, political lines, religious lines, gender lines, sexual orientation lines – an uncountable number of lines – we as Christians in God’s service are invited, nay, expected, not to contemplate the coming of the kingdom someday, but to usher it in today, now. “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” It’s not so impossible as it may seem.

Salma Hamadi of Toronto, an Iranian immigrant who has lived in Canada for approximately 12 years, shared this story (Facebook),

“This morning while waiting for the subway to leave Finch station, a Latino guy entered the train looking very angry and irritated. Sitting down in front of me, he was holding his head and kept saying “OH GOD”. The Russian guy sitting beside him asked if everything was ok, in a pretty heavy accent. He said he has a horrible headache and is running late for an interview. Overhearing the conversation, I offered him Advil… He took it and thanked me but said he doesn’t have water so he’ll have it later. The middle eastern woman sitting beside me wearing hijab, took out a juice box from her kid’s backpack and gave it to him telling him that if he takes it now he’ll feel better by the time he gets to the interview. He started thanking all of us for helping him out and said he’s nervous for the interview. The Russian told him to walk in confidently and to tie his hair back if he can. A Chinese teenager sitting on his other side, handed him a hair tie saying she has a million of them. I told him if he gets in late, to apologize but not bring excuses. Nobody likes excuses. The Muslim lady told him to smile a lot, people trust easier when you smile. We got to his station, wished him good luck and off he went. Now if THIS isn’t the ultimate Canadian experience short of a beaver walking into a bar holding a jar of maple syrup, I don’t know what is!”

It’s not just a Canadian experience – it is an in-breaking of the Kingdom.

Another clergyman tells of a story of a pastor he knew who had been chaplain in Vietnam. “One night he was in his tent when a young private came to see him. The private was newly arrived from the States and was scared, very scared, scared to death. The next day, he was going on patrol for the first time. And he was afraid to die. He cried, he moaned, he cursed, he prayed. He wanted the Chaplain to give him a saint’s medal, a New Testament, some charm or talisman that would keep him safe. He wanted the chaplain to tell him a prayer to pray, a good deed to do, anything to keep from dying. The chaplain said, “Look soldier, there’s nothing I can do to prevent you from getting killed on patrol tomorrow, there is no way I can promise you it won’t happen. There’s only one thing I can do. I’ll go with you.” (Personal story)
The chaplain walked into the jungle unarmed and unprotected to be with the soldier in his fearful world.” (Delmer Chilton, Lectionary Lab)

This is what Christ the King did. Does. Jesus walks with us unarmed, unprotected in a fearful world, teaching us how to walk, together, one step, and then another. Neighbor with neighbor. No pomp. No grandeur. This is how we are rescued from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of Christ. This is the coming of Christ’s kingdom. One loving, vulnerable step at a time…. Amen

Proper 24, Year C

Luke 18: 1-8

The first time I read the Gospel this week, I was quite frustrated by the lack of detail. What justice was the widow demanding and against whom? It’s safe to assume the other party had more status, since a widow who had to go to court to speak for herself was lower in status than a cow or a goat. I wanted to know how she had been harmed.

Then it hit me that this is a perfect reflection of my tendency to be judgmental. I wanted to decide the case for myself – Clearly not the point that Jesus was trying to make.

The second time through I was caught by the whole idea of justice. The woman was demanding justice from the corrupt judge, which he eventually grants because of her persistence. Jesus says, “And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.”

Stop and think for a moment. Have you ever prayed to God for justice? I don’t think I have, although I’ve certainly whined about something not being fair. That makes me wonder if Jesus here is referring to the whole nation or the community. Certainly in many parts of the OT there are images of Israel demanding or crying for justice, for release from their oppressors, for a chance to be run their own lives.

So what does it mean to pray for justice? What kind of justice might we pray for? There are two images of justice presented in the Bible.

There is the image of God as the great record-keeper in the sky, who notes all of our sins and transgressions. On Judgement Day he will hand out punishments based on our record. He will separate the sheep from the goats. We must be held accountable for all our sins and may even end up burning in hell for all eternity. This is called retributive justice. This is essentially the way our current justice system works. You do the crime, you serve the time.

The other kind of justice is merciful. This image of God is full of compassion for our short-comings, full of tender mercy for our suffering, quick to forgive and slow to anger. This God’s great desire is for reconciliation between the sinner and God and between the sinner and the one sinned against. This is called restorative justice. It seeks to restore the sinner to life in the community.

The Navajo have cultivated the idea of restorative justice in their religious beliefs and practices. When someone sins, or breaks a taboo, or has done evil, they must be restored to harmony. For the Navajo this is accomplished through sacred ceremonies. The harmony restored is between all parties, the sinner, the community, and the universe.

It’s not too different from our use of the Eucharist. We confess our sins and our sorrow for them, and the act of communion restores our community to harmony as the body of Christ.

There are many people, both within our church, and in society at large that are trying to bring the concept of restorative justice to our judicial system. If that strikes you as impossible, consider for a moment the work that Bishop Tutu did in South Africa with the whole business of war crimes after Apartheid ended. Did they take their former oppressors and throw them in jail? Or kill them? No, they formed a Reconciliation Commission that listened to victims and oppressors alike, with the idea of reintegrating the bad guys into their society in a positive way. It’s an amazing story and one well worth paying attention to.

I know that when I am the offended party, my first reaction is to want justice, not so much for me as against the offender. We want the bad guys punished. – well, unless we happen to be the bad guy. Then we want God to understand and forgive us. The question is this, what does God want from us? Every week we ask him to forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

When we think this through, it seems clear to me that reconciliation, if it can be achieved, is always better than punishment: better for the sinner, better for the sinned against, and way better for the community. You know from experience how disruptive it is in a group of friends or in a church community when there is a dispute or a feud between parties. It makes life miserable for everyone else as well. Others get sucked in and take sides. It destroys the harmony of the group.

Even when reconciliation may be impossible, forgiveness is possible. Remember the Amish community who lost 7 children to a gunman that invaded their school? They not only forgave the gunman, they supported his family in their grief. I saw a TV person ask one of the Amish men, the father of one of the children, how they could forgive the gunman, especially as he had clearly not repented. The man said, “Otherwise I would live a life full of bitterness.”

This should remind us that forgiveness and reconciliation are good for everyone involved, not just the offender. To be unforgiving of others is indeed to live a life of bitterness.

We don’t know what kind of justice the widow demanded from the corrupt judge, and honestly that probably isn’t the point of this parable. Karoline Lewis commented this week that the dishonest judge “relents not because he has changed his mind, but simply to shut up this dangerous widow. In this case, insolent, obnoxious, even intolerable behavior results in justice….we should persist in our complaints, even to the point of embarrassing the powers that be in order to induce change.”

That is the lesson for our communal life. To seek justice in our community and our country we must risk being like the widow, persistent and obnoxious.

But there’s also a lesson here for our prayer lives. While we can’t expect to get everything we ask for, anymore than a child can expect to get whatever they want from a loving parent, we can know that we are loved and heard. When we want something very badly, we do what we can do to make it happen and leave the rest in God’s hands. Jesus tells us here not to lose heart. He tells us repeatedly not to be afraid.

I’d wager that quite a few of you can think of times you prayed for something you wanted badly, that you did not get, and that latter on you realized you had prayed for the wrong thing. So I say to you, pray always from your heart, and then put yourselves in God’s hands. As a reminder, end each prayer with, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.”

AMEN