We remember. We press on: The Feast of All Saints

I recently had the pleasure of presiding at a wedding. It was wonderful. The bride and groom gathered with family in the Chancel. The flowers were perfect, the music glorious. And the bride and groom themselves were delightful. As they bound themselves to one another, I had a glimpse of God’s presence in our midst. It was a moment of God’s mercy, grace, and of course, love: faithful, honest love.

You may know that First Corinthians chapter 13 is one of the most popular readings for a wedding. Perhaps you’ve heard it: Love is patient, love is kind… Speaking for myself, I rarely listen to the whole text anymore. I think I already know it. Yet, when I really listen and seek to follow Paul’s guidance on love, I am transformed. 
Over the last few years, I’ve found that the Beatitudes have also become popular for weddings. And I’m always so pleased when couples choose this portion of the Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes invite us to experience God amidst some hard realities in our lives. If a couple chooses this reading, they seem to acknowledge that hard things will come.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit…” 

A bit easier to ponder for some than Luke’s version: “Blessed are you who are poor…” (Lk 16: 20) To be honest, I’m not really sure what it means. Are we poor in spirit when we are feeling sad or lonely? Are we poor in spirit when we recognize our dependence on God? Is this a bit like the first will be the last and the last will be first?

“Blessed are those who mourn…” 

Do we imagine there is blessing in our mourning? Probably not while we are deeply in our mourning. Yet, when we hold one another in our grief, when we share our sorrows with one another, blessings come. There is a sacredness, a sacrament of God’s community and kin_dom, when we mourn.

“Blessed are the meek…” 

Indeed, every relationship and community benefits from patience and gentleness. And people I know who practice these (meekness, humility) are blessings, to me, in and of themselves. 

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” 

We all know that life is uncertain and there will be moments of grief and humility. To me, this beatitude, though, presents a particular challenge. How do we hunger or thirst for righteousness? What is righteousness; who decides? Many of Jesus’ teachings challenge us to move from self-righteousness to righteousness, from moral superiority to justification. Justification or sanctification in the Christian life comes from binding our life to Christ. In other words, we are made holy by the ministry of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. When we hunger for Christ in our lives, we come close to God.

“Blessed are the merciful…the pure in heart…the peacemakers…” 

These are all fairly palatable and strong wisdom for marriage, or any relationship. Mercy, faithfulness, peace making make for good connections in community. They are primary ways to love God and our neighbor.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake…Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you…”

These last few verses are very compelling and uncomfortable. Couples are inclined to leave these out for their wedding. (Rare is the person who wants to equate marriage with persecution.) These two Beatitudes are very specific to the Christian life: what does it mean to bind our life to Christ? How do we live as peace makers, loving God and our neighbor? Will it require our social standing, hostility and criticism, even our lives? Following Christ may cost us something, more than just giving up our way. When we choose Christ’s way over any other, we come very close to God, like the prophets, like the saints. These Beatitudes are stark reminders that God’s ways come first, above human glory; and, our desire for human glory can be hard to shed.

The Greek word we translate as blessed is makarios. If there’s anything I’ve learned studying the Beatitudes it is this: this word does not naturally translate to English. Blessed could mean happy. Except, makarios doesn’t mean happy the way we imagine happiness. Rarely is anyone who is mourning walking around joyful and laughing. Blessed could mean blessed; but, again, not the way we mean commonly mean blessed. We often consider being blessed along the lines of being prosperous, fortunate, or enviable. Rarely do we equate persecution with fortune or prosperity. Blessed could mean greatly honored. That translation helps me the most. Indeed, I honor those who mourn, the humble or meek, the merciful, and the peacemakers. And, perhaps that’s a good motivator for embodying The Beatitudes. Whatever translation works for us, the point is that these ways, the ways highlighted by The Beatitudes, are closest to the ways of God. 

We can find God in self-less-ness, grief, humility, a desire for doing what is right, and compassion. We will find God when we seek peace and righteousness, when we follow God’s ways before any other. If we’re looking for God’s plan, if we’re looking for ways of belonging, if we’re looking for the image of God, The Beatitudes are a clue.

This is why we read The Beatitudes on All Saints’ Day. Consider anyone you imagine a saint (we’re about to read a long list), do we imagine that their lives resemble the ways found in The Beatitudes? 
I didn’t know St. Francis or St. Clare. And we consider them saints. Their lives are measured in acts of mercy, humility, and an ardent desire for righteousness. 

You don’t know The Groundhog Queen. She isn’t perfect. And she’s a lot of fun. She is loving and kind, gracious and self-giving. She is humble and pure of heart. She has borne deep grief. My friend, The Groundhog Queen, is joyful in the Lord. She wants nothing more than to share that joy with you. She is a saint. 

I never met Bishop Pierce, Mary Worthen, Jim Moseley, or Gordon Wittenburg. Yet, they are saints in the life of this parish. Men and women who sought the ways of God in their life and the life of this church.

The Feast of All Saints is the day to remember. The heart of Christian community is the desire to follow Christ: to pursue righteousness, God’s way of love, to risk seeking God before ourselves. The life of faith is marked by poverty of spirit, mourning, humility, and mercy; markers often scorned, belittled, and feared by our culture. Our community bears the marks of those who came close to God right here on Spring Street. It was no easy task building community on the corner of 17th and Spring Street. Many people gave, and continue to give, generous offerings of themselves to this place. And, even if they found glory in these offerings, it is Christ who reigns. Enter into the Garth, the Garden, the Cathedral and we will find ourselves surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses: lives measured in acts of love rooted in something greater than themselves. We remember.

And we press on. This afternoon (Tomorrow evening), as I’m installed as the Dean and Rector, we will also baptize two adults. Perhaps this is a holy coincidence. More likely, this is God’s way of nudging us closer to who God calls us to be: a gentle reminder that the life of the Cathedral is not about us. Our life together is a sign and symbol, a sacrament, of something greater than ourselves. God is working, at all times and in all places, to reconcile us to God’s self. As we seek Christ’s ways, we bind ourselves to his life, death, and resurrection: we are raised to new life in Him. Our community, yoked in Christ’s love for the world, has the power to bring God’s reconciling love to the world. If we remember anything today, may it be that we are a community of God’s saints: those who strive to seek God, to follow Christ, in all times and all places.

Over the last few months, I have experienced the great pleasure it is to be “The Dean.” Of course, I long to know more of you and more about each of you. And, what I already know, what you’ve already taught me about you, is: kindness, hospitality, a deep desire to serve, and your hunger for God. I know that you grieve, personal and communal losses. And I know that you hope, that you believe God raises us up from what presses in on us. I am honored to grieve with you, to dream about the future, to bind our hopes together. I am delighted to be a member of this community of God’s saints.

I am so excited for our future. I know it will not be easy. Our desire to love God and our neighbors is our foundation as we face any challenge. We know hard things will come. And we know we will experience God in the midst of them. Blessed are we when we search for God and find God. Blessed are we when we mourn, for we will find comfort.

Blessed are we when we seek ways of meekness, righteousness, purity, and peacemaking, for we will come close to God. And may God grant us strength and courage to keep searching, keep following, keep showing up, that we may see God again and again and again…Alleluia! And thanks be to God!

Be at peace: Proper 23A

Recently, I saw a twitter thread about the six month mark of a crisis. It came from a crisis journalist: someone who covers long term conflict and trauma. He was writing to share his experience with these people and places. He wrote that the six month mark of any crisis looks and feels very similar to the beginning. Even though there is change, the exhaustion comes afresh. The feelings of grief, loss, and change rise to the surface again. Now is the time to remember to take care of ourselves, if we can: to eat and rest well, he wrote.

Here we are: six months into COVID social distancing and the grief resonates all around me. There is so much I miss. I miss restaurants, movies, and date nights. I miss coffee hour, Sunday school, and Communion. I feel the loss of having some sense of what each day will bring. Every day brings a remember that (to quote a friend) all 2020 plans are fluid. I’m trying to stay as flexible and adaptable as possible. And I want everything to go back to normal; except, what is normal? I am tired and tempted to fall into bad habits. I am trying to be gentle to myself so that I can be gentle with my neighbor. Sometimes, to offer rest to my soul, I come into the Cathedral to pray. I sit in the silence and wonder. I wonder which pew is your pew. I try to listen: for the choir, the creaking of the pews, children’s laughter, and the lifting of our voices in prayer together. I know that it will not be like this forever. I am trying to let myself grieve, so that my hope for the future can thrive.

Scripture tells the story again and again of God’s people in the desert, or metaphorical deserts. These are not always struggles. The desert becomes a place where the absence or search for God is palpable. Adam and Eve are thrown out of the garden. Abraham and Sarah finding God in the stars and sand. Joseph is sold by his brothers into slavery and taken to a foreign land. Moses, Aaron, and Miriam lead their people from slavery into a desert. The people of Israel watching their kingdom fall and sent into exile by foreign empires. Jesus driven into the desert encountering Satan. The disciples hiding in the upper room, afraid and grieving the death of their friend and teacher. Paul sitting in a prison cell, wondering if his life or death will spread the Gospel. The desert is not one place. It is the place where our grief and hope meet; our yearning to understand where God is in our deepest suffering and greatest joy. 

The letter or letters to the Philippians is written while Paul is in prison, probably in Rome. What we call the letter to the Philippians is likely the remnants of four letters. The threads of friendship, joy, and the glory of Christ hold our version of the letter together. Paul hints that the Philippians are suffering or facing opposition. Paul uses his suffering to encourage them. 
Philippians is a short book, four chapters. I encourage you to read it. Last week, the Sub-dean drew on those marvelous phrases: “I press on…straining forward to what lies ahead…” Provocative reminders that, whatever our circumstances, we continue to reach for Christ. 

Paul seeks purpose while in prison, believing his death will bring life to him and the Gospel. And Paul depends on the faith of his friends and the power of the Holy Spirit. Most of all, Paul binds himself, his life and death, to Christ. He encourages the Philippians, he encourages us, to do the same. The life we find in Christ, even as we suffer, strengthens us for all our circumstances.  

How, then, do we bind ourselves to Christ? In baptism? In the Eucharist? Yes AND in joy and gentleness and peace. There is no either-or. Baptism and Eucharist unite us to Christ’s life and death that he may dwell in us and we in him. The story, our story, though does not end there. We are sent into the world to love and serve. This is its own binding: glorifying Christ with our lives, loving God and our neighbor as Christ loves us. 

Our reading today comes just after Paul urges unity in the community. We don’t know the conflict between Euodia and Syntyche. We can imagine; there are all kinds of ways we are divided from one another, even in the church. He reminds the community, then, what they have in common: they “have struggled beside [him] for the sake of the Gospel.” For the sake of the Gospel, they must remember their common goal: the glory of Christ. This purpose binds them to one another and to Christ; this purpose is their community.

Then Paul encourages them. He commends practices of joy, gentleness, and peace. He invites prayer in the face of worry. Seek truth, honor, justice, and purity, a list of philosophies that pair well with the Gospel. His assumption is that we agree on what is true and honorable, just and pure. Because he assumes all of these are rooted in Christ. What are the things we have learned, received, heard, and seen in Paul? They are a life lived devoted to the ministry and glory of Christ. Follow Christ, yoke ourselves to Christ’s life, and we have all we need. In Christ, our divisions cease; we have union with God and one another.
Here we are in the desert. We miss our church. We miss our community. How can we bind our selves to Christ and one another when everything is so different? 

We practice. We study scripture, remembering the story of God’s ongoing activity in the world. We pray, giving thanks and interceding on behalf of all of creation. We seek Christ, practicing gentleness and turning our minds towards truth and justice. We practice all that we have learned and received. These words of Paul, to me, are a series of sayings we can keep in front of us at all times. Embroider them on a pillow or hand letter them on a card. Choose your favorite verse and write it on a post-it note. And, let’s remember that Paul wrote these words during some of his darkest days. They are not a glossing over of suffering and hardship. They are reminders that there is more to us than our circumstance. We are faithful members of Christ’s body; our lives vehicles for Christ’s peace to the world. 

Dear beloved children of God, be at peace. Be gentle to yourselves and one another; pray for one another trusting the Holy Spirit to empower and strengthen us. These days may seem dark and divided. And, as we seek Christ in all things, we will know His peace. For Christ is with us. 

By whose authority: Proper 21A

Authority: who has it and who gets it? Parents have it - or that’s a rumor I heard once. And, we know it’s a good thing when children begin questioning that authority. In my mind, teacher’s have it. Until I remember the first time I questioned what I was taught. Then, I began to wonder: why do I give teachers authority? The same thing happened to me in the church. The church has all kinds of categories for authority that work - until they don’t. Abuses of power, decisions we disagree with, order we don’t want to fall: all of these are moments when we question authority. 

“By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” The question comes from the Chief Priests and the Elders. Who are they, we might wonder. These are the elite, the leaders of the Temple. They are the ones in charge of the Temple. And, in case we wonder why they are asking the question, here’s what Jesus has been up to in the Temple:
Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, ‘It is written,
“My house shall be called a house of prayer”;
   but you are making it a den of robbers.’
The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. (Matthew 21: 12-14).
This is, of course, after he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey while the people cried, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” He is hailed as King and then behaves like a king, or at least as one who has power. Except, he is not the “official” authority. He is not a chief priest or elder; he is not one of the elite Temple authority. Why, then, is he acting like one; why is he claiming power as someone who decides the use and care of the Temple? What authority does he have and who gave it to him?

Today’s Gospel is the beginning of five challenges between Jesus and the Temple authorities. The stakes are high. Twice Matthew tells us that the Chief priests AND Pharisees are trying to entrap Jesus. They want him to fail. He undermines their authority. They have created a system that works well for the elite: filling up the treasury and requiring the people to travel hundreds of miles to worship. Meanwhile, Jesus has fed and healed the crowd. As he journeys across Israel, Jesus tells the crowd, “the kingdom of God is near to [them].” The crowd, for now, is loyal to Jesus. The problem is the chief priests and elders depend on the crowd. Indeed, the crowd has its own power. If the leaders of the Temple lose their authority, what will happen: to the Temple, to them, to a whole way of life that depends on certain people being in charge. And so, the chief priests and elders, the Pharisees and scribes, are united in one goal: to reveal Jesus as a fraud, to prove he has no authority. Jesus must succeed at every challenge.

Today’s challenge is the longest and includes three parables. The chief priests and elder come out with their strongest punch: prove you are who you say you are. Except they already know who he is. His life, as told in the Gospel, tells them all they need to know. They are avoiding the real question: how will it change them, if they believe? They are not leaders. Instead, they are power hoarders who care little for the people under their authority. Already, in the first challenge, Jesus shows how their power is weak and ineffective.

Jesus’ answer to the question comes in two parts: a question and three stories. Each piece chips away at Jesus’ accusers. 
First: What about John? John appears in the wilderness proclaiming a Baptism of repentance (Matthew 3: 1). Crowds from all over the region come to be baptized by him. Even the Pharisees and scribes come for baptism. John rebukes them: “You brood of vipers!” he says, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” It is not enough to be baptized: they must be transformed; they must change their ways. John calls their authority into question because of the duplicitous nature of their actions. And John continues to assert his own authority with an added warning, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me…” John prepares the way for Jesus, exalting his authority above his own. John and Jesus are intimately linked. John’s baptism prepares us to follow Christ into the fullness of God’s kingdom among us.

The Chief Priests and elders are in a tight spot. The crowd, a crowd loyal to John’s baptism, is watching them. If they reject John, the crowd may revolt: the community agrees that John is a prophet. If they affirm John’s, then why do they not submit to John’s baptism and why reject Jesus? They do not know the answer. They have already lost.

Then, Jesus tells a story of two brothers. This is his version, of the two sons tradition. These stories are, hopefully, familiar to us. If not, do a quick Bible search for Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, or Aaron and Moses. Luke’s Gospel tells its own version in the parable of “The Prodigal Son.” Today’s parable has its own twist. 

“Which brother does the will of the Father,” Jesus asks. Whenever Jesus asks a question, I assume it’s a maneuver or device. Before I answer, I try to remember how Jesus lived. I try look at the question from the perspective of mercy, or in favor of the most vulnerable. I try to imagine how the question is asking about who is first and who is last. Jesus’ own answer to this question reveals a depth to the parable. Jesus calls attention to those who are normally cast out of the community of the righteous. Except, their faithfulness, shown by repentance and transformation, draws them close to God. The parable is not only about these brothers; it is about anyone who repents and returns to God. 

As we eavesdrop in the Temple, how do we answer Jesus’ questions? How do we understand the baptism of John? Do we unite ourselves to this baptism, repenting and returning to the Lord? How do we judge these two brothers?
Authority: who has it and who gets it? I wonder what authority Jesus has in our lives? 

The first thing Jesus does in the temple is call for justice. He demands that the Temple become a place where people have access to God. He cures the blind and the lame in the temple. Access to God is not limited by what human authority deems righteous. Jesus comes close to the people and reveals God’s mercy for the people.  His actions show how far the Temple has come from God’s ways, God’s authority.

The Gospel shows the difficulty of repentance. For the chief priests and elders to repent, some things will have to change. Are they willing to relinquish themselves, and the systems they depend on, to God’s authority? Are we?

The good news of the Gospel is the mercy of God’s justice. There is John the Baptist, who calls us to repent and bear fruit worthy of repentance. And there are the two brothers. Even the brother who says yes and doesn’t go can still say yes. Any one of us can repent and return. The parable invites us into this wondering. How often have we said no, only to say yes; how often we’ve said yes, when we really meant no? The good news is we can always change our answer; we can always return to God. 
This week as we go about our days: may we be attentive to our yes’ and our no’s, especially to God’s ways in our lives. May we bind our wills to God’s mercy and justice. May we give up ourselves that God’s kin_dom will reign.