Admirer or Follower?*

Homily - February 2, 2020

Feast of the Presentation of The Lord

Today’s feast

The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Hasn’t fallen on a Sunday in a long time

And the downside to that fact

Is that we rarely hear this story proclaimed at Sunday worship 

So this is a happy day

I love this story

I love the details

And the characters

And the setting

I love how easy it is to visualize

And imagine yourself there

…just another pilgrim finding some peaceful prayer space

Luke is telling us that Jesus was born into a particular world

A Jewish world 

A world wrapped up in a sacred covenant between God and Israel

The notion of “purification”

May sound strange to our ears

But it arises in a context 

…and out of a community…sensitive…if not preoccupied with the notion of the HOLY

Still today this traditional Jewish ceremony marks a child’s birth

And when the people are gathered they pray:

As this child has been welcomed into the covenant, so may she grow into a life of Torah, marriage, and good works.”

This is a prayer HEAVY with hope and expectation

I so get this

When I set eyes upon my tiny new grandson…Luke

That was the overwhelming emotion

HOPE

Hope and expectation

For everything True and Beautiful and Good

To overflow into the life of this tiny child

Mary and Joseph 

Simple, unworldly, village folks

Stretching to bring a pair of young pigeons in dutiful sacrifice

come to present Jesus in the Temple

They are full of hope

Simeon,

the righteous and devout Simeon

Finally sees his hope fulfilled

And he erupts with what is now known as the Canticle of Simeon

A prayer recited every evening in the Liturgy of the Hours

And then there is Anna

The Gospel of Luke loves to have the male and female side by side

She too witnesses this great hope 

But unlike Simeon who can now retire from this world

She, after living in the Temple night and day

can’t stop spreading the marvelous news…at the advanced age of 84.

We just heard  all this wonderful news proclaimed

…Just now when we read the Gospel

But that wasn’t all we heard

We heard the warnings of things to come as well

We didn’t miss the cracks

Because…This is NO EASY HOPE

It is not CHEAP 

It is not SHALLOW 

Just as Simeon declares the marvelous fulfillment of the promise

He turns to Mary and Joseph…With his addendum:

“Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, 

‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, 

and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—

(or laid bare like in some other translations)

and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’”

What is this falling and rising?

How are hidden thoughts laid bare?

I don’t think it is by war

Or by economic destruction

Or by natural disaster

Inner thoughts are revealed

They are laid bare

Through Becoming transparent

Becoming real

Becoming a person whose outside matches the inside

Becoming a community whose outside matches the inside

On Wednesday night I went to see the movie 

A Hidden Life

And I have been haunted by it ever since

It interrupts my sleep

And catches me unawares with its challenge

It is a three-hour movie

But just to give you a brief intro

It is the story of Franz Jagerstatter

A simple, unworldly, Austrian farmer 

With limited education

But of devout and intentional faith

It takes place in the aftermath of the Nazi takeover of Austria 

Which happened almost overnight with little resistance.

Like nearly all his fellow Austrians 

He is called up to join the Nazi army

He has already gone through the basic training

Which is where he became aware of the Evil at the heart of Hitler’s plan

…an evil, he notices, that has everyone around him 

caught up and quick with their ‘yeses’

Franz can’t say yes

He can’t raise his right arm in salute…it won’t go

He can’t do it

All he has is his ‘No”

Everyone tempts him by saying

“What good will it do…

“You will only get killed…and then what

     What of you wife and children

     What of your aging mother???”

"Surely you know that it won’t make one iota of a difference in this war bloody???”

His love for his family is nowhere in doubt

…by his family anyway

And his wife in the end speaks her final words (gospel words) of love

“Whatever you do, I am with you always…”

And he is beheaded…guillotined along with other treasonous Austrians

This is all a matter of historical record

The movie was filmed in his village

Even in his same house

the same prison was used in the film

And even the same courtroom

But for me today

On this feast day

Where we contemplate Luke’s story of The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

I am reminded of one short scene in the movie

It takes place in a small chapel

Franz comes upon an aging artist who is painting (or restoring) frescoes on the wall of the chapel…

And the old painter wonders aloud (to the best of my memory;)

“I paint these sweet lovely scenes of Christ…and perhaps they gather a few admirers…Christ has a lot of admirers…but I often wonder how many followers there really are? I wonder, am I an admirer or a follower? Most days I'm not so sure.”

In Luke’s scene of the Presentation

we hear and see the whole story…loud and clear…cracks and all

But the grace in this text is that

It isn’t enough

The cracks…the anticipation of opposition, and trial and suffering

Are not enough

Not enough to diminish the hope

     the joy of recognizing a promise fulfilled

So

Where does all this leave me?

Where does it leave you?

Where does it leave us?

I feel fairly certain…though one never knows

That we won’t be faced with a choice 

A choice between yes and no

as stark as Franz’s

a choice that led to literal martyrdom

But what are those choices that confront our lives

What are those choices that when you put them together

And balance them out

They will reveal our inner thoughts

And make us transparent

…as admirers or followers?

I believe

I believe 

That those choices ...the ones that move toward becoming a follower

are the ones when there is something…even a little something…at stake

They are the choices that clearly lead to my becoming a person whose outside matches her inside

Does what I buy

Or what I sell

Or what I store

Or what I throw away

(and how I throw it away)

Does what I say

And how I say it

Does how I give and how I take

And how I weep

And what I weep over

Does how I show love 

And how I challenge and correct

Does the way I act on all these

Lean me into becoming a follower?

or just a well-polished admirer?

This is what has been haunting me since Thursday night around 11pm.

There is grace in the text

And there is grace here among us

Because here is a safe place 

A safe place to be haunted a little

And to wonder

And to be challenged 

And to be formed and reformed over and over again

In the fine art of becoming a follower

Simeon and Anna…Mary and Joseph…And Blessed Franz Jagerstatter

Pray for Us

The humble…followers…of St. Stephens Church, New Harmony

Saying Yes*

Homily Advent 3A

Sunday, December 15, 2019

St Stephen’s Episcopal Church

New Harmony, IN

Every Advent, the gospel reading for both the 2^nd and 3^rd Sundays

Feature John the Baptist

John always gets his coverage in Advent

Surprisingly, Mary gets very little scriptural attention in Advent

But for today Dr. Beth chose Canticle 15 

The Magnificat of Mary

She chose it as a substitute for Psalm 146---

(The lectionary gives two options)

She chose it because 

though Mary is very prominent in the Liturgy of the hours,

     showing up to conclude every day’s Evening Prayer

From the point of view of Sunday Worship, she is quite hidden

The pink candle 

Always lighted on the third Sunday of Advent candle

Is the Mary Candle

This Sunday is known in liturgical language as Gaudete Sunday

Gaudete means REJOICE

And so the Magnificat of Mary is the perfect text.

I had a professor of Scripture once say to the class… 

(we were studying Luke’s Gospel where all the good stuff about Mary is found)

He said of Mary “She is too important to leave to the kooks!”

Doesn’t sound very nice

But he wanted to help us reimagine Mary

Taking away her blond hair and blue eyes

Substituting practical working clothes 

for the Blue and white silk perfection of the catholic catalog Marian statues

Not that these devotional Mary’s are somehow wrong

But they simply don’t capture the Mary of the Gospels.

My professor wanted us to get to know the Mary of the Gospels.

When I first started working at St Vincent’s as a chaplain

I was surprised to find that many people are attracted to Mary

And not just women…not just Catholics

We had these deep drawers full of plastic rosaries…

And I remember thinking that surely they’d been there for years

But then I noticed that people…all kinds of people…asked for them

And I wondered:

What is it about Mary that makes believers…from Catholic to evangelical alike…

feel a kinship with her?

According to Luke it all begins with Mary’s YES

Could it be that God had been waiting and waiting and waiting

Waiting since the beginning of human life

For someone to respond with a completely free yes

A Yes like Mary’s?

Was God tired of all the half-hearted Yesses?

The Yes, if’s

And the Yes, but’s

And the Yes, when’s…

And the Yes, after I finish….

And the Yes, well maybe’s…

Was God tired of the human inability to make a complete and free YES

To the invitation to bare Christ

To participate bodily in the Incarnation

To be God’s creative partner???

…and then came Mary

Her YES…her free and total YES

makes her the first disciple

The perfect disciple

The mother of the community that is the church

Her YES is what we all strive to imitate

She utters her Yes to God’s plan for her

And she rushes to share her news with her cousin

When they meet, the pregnant Elizabeth and the pregnant Mary,

Mary irrupts in song

All the songs on her top ten play list come from the psalms

The psalms were the soundtrack of every first century Jewish life

She irrupts in psalms of rejoicing

What is this ‘REJOICING’?

How is it different from…say ‘Happiness’?

I think at the root of it

Happiness is dependent on things outside oneself

Whereas, Rejoicing is an internal knowing

A knowing and recognizing the unconditional love of God at work in the world

like being overwhelmed in your whole body with the nearness of God.

And so…I have been thinking

What causes me to REJOICE?

That makes me shake in awe?

That makes me short of breath with delight?

I paid attention and noticed 2 things yesterday

Yesterday morning

I was reading the obituaries

And I read the obituary of Barbara Jean Warfield

And this is what her family wrote of her death:

  On December 3, 2019, 

  Barbara Caught the Morning Train to Glory

  with her family at her side as she departed!

(and Morning Train to Glory was capitalized!)

Who was this woman…so in love with God

That her family was perfectly sure she had a first-class ticket on that Glory Train?

I really couldn’t help but rejoice for Barbara

But not just Barbara

But for her family’s big and bold witness 

     on the pages of Saturday’s Courier and Press!

Later in the day

I read a reference to the California Super Bloom

Which happened in March of this year

…A super-bloom is a rare desert phenomenon

when an unusually large number of dormant seeds

bloom all at the same time!

I’d heard about it back in March

But I hadn’t taken the time to search for any pictures

And because I had the Isaiah reading on my mind

With its vision of impossibly beautiful happenings in the desert…

Because of that

I searched for pictures

It takes your breath away---even in pictures.

In the desert…

This unexpected and surprising explosion of color!

A carpet of color and texture as far as the eye can see!

It was completely rejoicing-worthy!

God is near!

I paid attention

And it helped me think differently about what was happening in my day

Rejoicing simply must be good food for the soul 

Earlier this week I was talking to my daughter in law, Stephanie

Who is 8 months pregnant

She was telling me about a Church she visited where the Advent Wreath 

has a small statue of a pregnant Mary in the middle of it. 

There just is something about Advent and pregnancy

The Chaplains office at St Vincent’s

is located at the entrance 

to the Hospital for women and children

And several times a day I would see women in varying stages of pregnancy 

walk the long hallway to the elevator

And as pregnancies unfold the walks change

This happened all year long

But Advent made me notice

Eventually…you know... 

The hands are on the hips

The back is a little arched 

And the belly leads the way

At the literal level

We can recognize the growing, and anticipating, and preparing 

that surrounds the bringing to birth of a child

But on the level of mystery

This is an image for all of us

Pregnant Mary is a prod 

…An Advent prod for each of us

A prod to our own reflection

What do I say YES too?

What do I welcome to take up space in me?

What do I birth…what comes forth from me?

The action of Advent is ADVENTING

Adventing means…to bring into being

We…all of us here…

Are Disciples of Christ

We are on a pilgrimage

And as we journey along

We have Mary’s example as first and most perfect disciple

As our guide

We have said our shaky YES in baptism

Yes, to the vocation of Adventing Christ

In what we say

And do

And feel

In how we walk

And sing

And love

Every day we have countless opportunities to bring to birth new life

Perhaps not grandiose opportunities

But near ones

Paying attention is how we will get better

At this REJOICING business

All that I am

Sings to the God

who brings new life

To birth in me

My spirit soars

On the wings of my Lord

(from our singing of the Magnificat version by David Haas…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zIIWVioh-Q)

Bumperstickers or Billboards?*

St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, New Harmony, IN

Homily Advent 1A (late post)

Isaiah 2:1-5

Matthew 24:37-44

The first Sunday of Advent is a problem

There are so many things going on.

We are beginning the new liturgical year

When we will be living in the Gospel of Matthew 

This transition out of the Gospel of Luke is an important thing to note
because each Gospel tells the story of Jesus from a different vantage point

It’s like circling around a large bronze statue 

and realizing that each view looks different…

Jesus in Luke’s Gospel spent time in prayer, 

the Holy Spirit played an active role in the storytelling…

Luke’s Jesus spent a lot of time around dinner tables

Often with questionable dinner guests

the poor and those on the fringes…women, Samaritans, lepers

Matthew will give us a Gospel

Written more from a Jewish perspective

Jesus is cast as a new Moses

There is a lot of language of fulfillment and continuity between Judaism and the Jesus movement

We have a change of Gospel…and we also have a new liturgical season

It is Advent

Advent is more than preparing for Christmas

It is four Sundays calling us…the Church 

To contemplate the meaning of Jesus’ incarnation

In Christ coming in History, Mystery and Majesty

The History is the coming of Jesus

In human form…

Born of Mary in Bethlehem of Judea

Living among us

The Mystery is knowing his presence 

In His Word 

In the Sacrament of the Eucharist

In the body of Christ…the church…the faithful gathered

In the beauty of creation, the beauty of loving and being loved
Of healing and reconciling 

And the Majesty 

Is the fruit of HOPE

Hope is believing in the promise of God

And believing that God has the power to fulfill that promise

We hear language in Advent 

of Being Awake and watchful
of waiting and preparing

But while we highlight this in Advent

Christ’s coming is a continual Advent

God’s presence is continually surprising us

Week 1 of Advent begins with a bang!It starts with Majesty

But…it is far from comforting!

I would use the word troubling

Two in the field one taken, one left

Two at their days work,
One taken…one left

I bet most of you have seen 

some version of a RAPTURE bumper-sticker

They read something like:

“Warning: In Case of the Rapture this vehicle will be unmanned”???

And then there’s the cheeky bumper-sticker response:

“In Case of the Rapture…
Can I have your car?”

It’s really just bad theology

…in today’s text…is it even obvious???

…do we really know???

Whether it’s better to be taken or left behind???

In the story of Noah the ones left behind were Noah, his family and the animals.

So wasn’t it the ones taken who were the losers in that story?

Here is what I believe Matthew wants us to hear in this very vivid text:

The through line 

Not just in this text

But throughout the Gospels is consistent 

“the day or the hour…no one knows”

We. just. don’t. know.

But that is so hard for us…

I like to know things

Knowing things is power

Knowing things makes me feel in control

I. love. Knowing. Things.

And having things in order 

Because doesn’t knowing things…translate into control?

NO! How many times have I learned and unlearned this lesson!!!

I had the perfect plan 

for bringing my Dad to Evansville to celebrate 

a perfect thanksgiving 

with my perfectly healthy family

Gathering from far and wide…perfectly on time!

Alas…I had absolutely no control over weather, and illness, and mishap!!!

…things just didn’t end up at all like I planned!!!

We can’t know the when and the how

But we can

Live life awake…attentive…ready

This isn’t some hypervigilance born of fear

Rather it is living a life grounded in a vision

In a promise

This is where I found myself drawn to the Isaiah reading and the Psalm

Did you hear it? And see it in your mind’s eye?

That beautiful image from Isaiah?

He’s not making a prediction

He’s having a dream!

An unquenchable dream! 

A dream that inspires

It inspires us to Live and to work to beat swords into ploughshares

And spears into pruning hooks

And this dream…this vision

Of All the nations and all the peoples

Living in the light of the Lord

Is because… no one…has taught them about war.

I couldn’t help but think of Wayne

I remembered him 

Just out front of this church

(maybe it was last year’s Kuntzfest?)

He was giving us a visual…heating and beating that metal

I saw that it was hard work

His pounding… 

His repetitive constructive action 

was propelled by a vision of what could be

something new…a thing of beauty and practicality

So there is an Advent question for us

It’s a question of WHAT and HOW

What does beating swords into ploughshares look like in the particulars of my life?

How do I live in the meantime

in the already and not-yet world of Advent?

The already is our faith in the promise

And the not yet is the VERY obvious 

“Not. Yet. Fulfilled.” status of that promise

I think our texts this morning offer us a gift

Set in the context of Advent

When we watch the light grow

From one week to the next 

…it is a kind of pilgrimage

Advent is a practice in pilgrimage

And there is always a towards in pilgrimage

We are always headed somewhere

And it’s best to know where!

The where is the vision

Today we have Isaiah’s version in poetry and promise

And the vision is fueled by HOPE

What is HOPE?

Hope is to look back on our lives and see no need

To the count the losses 

Or underline the hurts

Play the victim

Or stew in bitterness

To look back and see these

Is to live like a hamster on his treadmill

…wondering why the view never changes

To look forward in HOPE is to know that all that has gone before 

Is redeemable in the promise

So we begin this Advent and every Advent

With the end in mind

It is calling us to wake up

To reset the vision

But from what?

And toward what?

That is for us to figure out

It is our Advent exercise

Can I name what steals my hope?

And

Can I name what feeds my hope?

And then having done that naming

Can I improve the balance?

What steals my hope is the almost constant temptation to pronounce the vision

WILDLY UNREALISTIC…

Just pretty words

…pretty words to make people feel better

What steals my hope is the parasite that attaches to this temptation…
that comes along for the ride trying to go undetected…
that sneaky but constant 

Simmering low-level despair 

What feeds my hope is listening

And being interested

And being unrushed

What feeds my hope is doing the things that hope makes easy to do!

What feeds my hope is being here 

and being uplifted by the hope shared in this space

What if we make this Advent a kind of “boot camp”

A time to pay attention…and to talk about

What steals our hope?

And

What feeds our hope

And then, together, to be about the business of improving our ratios

This is how we will become

…Not cheap bumper stickers…

But BILLBOARDS! 

Billboards of hope