The Commandments of Love

Hear what the Lord God commanded: “Take a lamb for each household, and make of it a feast, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and mark your doorways with its blood, that death may pass over you when I smite the Egyptians so that Pharaoh will let you go.” And further, he decreed, “You shall observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought you out of the land of Egypt.” And thus, the people of Israel are marked and separated from death; delivered.

Now hear what Christ commands: “Eat this bread, and drink this cup; do this in remembrance of me.”

And thus we are united, for we take Christ into us through an inexplicable mystery, made one in the church which is his body and he the head. It matters not whether there is some physical transformation, as some have held: Christ truly is present; he is manifested in these simple material things. And thus we may believe that he is made part of us, that his presence becomes part of our selves. But moreover, as we remember his death for us and for all, we testify to his saving acts. For he is the true Paschal lamb, the sacrifice and feast of our Passover; his blood is upon us, upon the doorposts and lintels of our hearts. We are separated from sin and death, that in the end they shall not claim us.

Thus we should not think of communion primarily as some sort of spiritual food, tempting though that may be. Our spiritual supply tanks are not drained as the week goes on, to be replenished of a Sunday morning. No, as we consume the bread and the wine, we make real again what is already there: our connection to the saving power of Jesus through his death and resurrection. Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died, a sacrifice for the sins of the world, once for all, forever ending the curse of our fallen nature; Christ is risen, breaking the power of death; Christ will come again, as we remember through every Eucharist, coming to end this old world of sin and suffering and bring out of it the eternal life of manifest grace and glory.

And so, finally, hear what Jesus commands: “Love one another as I have loved you.” It seems a separate commandment, but it is not; it is of one substance with all that comes before. For after all, how was Jesus about to love them? “He stretched out his arms upon the cross, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.” His sacrifice is also our sacrifice: not just offerings, not just hymns of praise and worship, not just the rites he commanded us to observe. Our lives must also be of love, so that we do not need to ask, “when Lord, did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or naked?” for we will know Christ in all around us in need or trouble—but also, that all around us will know Christ through our love. And it is of course too much for us sinners: our love is halting and held back by our fallen nature. So we sin again and again; yet as we confess them, as grace pours forth in absolution, as the Spirit dwells in us, in the end it will not matter. Therefore, week by week we gather here; we hear the word of God, we proclaim our faith, we offer up our prayers, and we repeat the remembrance of Christ's death and resurrection. And we go forth in the power of the Spirit, to love and serve the Lord, by carrying his love into the world through the witness of our words and deeds, that the world may be filled with the knowledge and love of God as the water covers the sea.

Our Mission: To Witness

For the Easter Vigil: this year the gospel was from Mark.

We have heard the story of how the women arrived at the tomb, expecting to find a corpse sealed behind the stone, and were met instead by the angel, the messenger of the great gospel: Jesus is risen! And thus is salvation announced, the miracle beyond miracles. Moses held out his hand, and God delivered the Hebrews though the cleft waters, a show of power befitting the efforts of Hollywood special effects. The people walked through the sea on dry land, and then the waters returned to wash away the forces of Pharaoh and deliver God's people from bondage. Against this spectacle the empty tomb pales, and yet it is this which changes the world forever, for at that moment, death was broken forever. And those women, and ourselves these two millenia later, were not the agents of this salvation, but only witnesses to God's mighty act:

“The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still."

In Mark's gospel, the women flee into silence, and yet we have their testimony tonight. Indeed, there are those who hold that the shortest versions of Mark are somehow truncated; and we have other versions which attempt to supply the seemingly missing ending, more or less clumsily. But that is not important, compared to the empty tomb and the angel's message, which is the conclusion of a single narrative common to all four gospels, to which they devote more space than any other single story. They all agree that Jesus took his disciples with him when he went to pray at Gethsemane, and that there he was arrested by guards from the temple, led by Judas; they all recount the same story of interrogation by Caiaphas and the chief priests, during which Peter denied his master three times, as prophesied; they all tell how Jesus was taken to Pilate, who condemned Jesus in spite of his obvious innocence, releasing Barabbas instead as a sop to the crowds. They all describe how Jesus was mocked, and how he was crucified with two others, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James looking on, but the disciples dispersed. and how his clothing was divided among the soldiers; and they all state that Joseph of Aramathea came and, with Pilate's permission, took the body away and laid it in the stone tomb, wrapped in a shroud, before the day was out.

But that is not the end of it, by no means. All four gospels continue, relating the same tale of Sunday morning: that at daybreak Mary Magdalene went to the tomb with other women and found it opened, and that Jesus' body was not there; they all say that she and those with her encountered an angel who asked her why she wept, and who told her that Jesus was not there, and that he was risen from the dead. Here, then, is the heart of the gospel message: Christ crucified, but also, Christ risen. Nothing is more important to the faith than this—nothing! Only the incarnation approaches it in importance. It is because of the testimony of these women, and that of the disciples after them, in their encounters with the empty tomb and the risen Jesus, that we have a religion to preach. It was this that Peter taught in his address to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, and which teaching put him and the other disciples in front of the Sanhedrin.

Paul likewise makes Christ crucified and risen again the center of his teaching, and so must we also bear witness, for if Christ were not arisen, what would the point be? It is the testimony of that Friday, and that Sunday morning, that gives meaning and justification to our gathering here, to remember again the glorious grace which we have received. Were Jesus not arisen, well, we have many moral teachers from around the world; what is one more? Were Jesus not arisen, what hope would there be in our faith? Were Jesus not arisen, why should the world heed our message?

But the tomb is empty, as the women related; Christ is arisen, and death's power is thus broken, to be utterly wiped away on the last day, when the old passes away and all is made new forever. It is these moments in history, in which salvation is realized, that are the foundation of our message to the world. The brokenness of humanity is something that anyone can see; human sinfulness is the one doctrine verifiable by ordinary observation. But salvation is hidden from such inquiry; it can be found only in the church, not because the church owns it, but because it is the church's testimony, the memory of those sacred days, that brings the message of salvation to the world. Without us as its messengers, who would hear of Christ? Who would know that salvation is there, and is freely given, and may be taken for no greater price than confession, faith, and baptism? And when we say to others, “you should live as we teach, in the name of Christ,” who should heed us? We know that Jesus is the incarnate Son, and that his teaching is that of God on earth; but we know him first as Jesus crucified, buried, and risen again, and it is this which compels our worship, because it is in this that we see the fulfillment of the LORD God's saving purpose. And if it is how we see what is revealed, it is thus how we must show others the same divine revelation. We must be witnesses to the world, not hiding in fear, but bold in proclamation. We did nothing to defeat death: God, in his incarnate son, did that. But now we have been made part of that miracle, and it is through us that the world may also become part of it. That is our mission as the church.

Christ is risen from the dead: that is our first message; come and be baptized: that is our second; live together in the kingdom as Jesus taught, doing his work as we await the last days in faith, love, and hope: that is our third. One follows from the other; they are not separate. So here we are, and what work must we do? Well, to live as Christ taught, of course, dead to sin in the sacrifice of his crucifixion, as Paul explained. But it is not simply a matter of living an upright and godly life in charity and purity of heart. No, to the best of our ability, and in the grace of the Spirit, we must carry out the will of the Father not only in abjuring sin, but in showing the Son to the world. Those outside the church need to see a reason for coming in, not just through our superior life (for at this we fail over and over), but through our superior knowledge: we know the story of salvation, and the world does not. The world chases after false gods: not only failing to see the LORD God as He is, and worshiping others in His place, but elevating human lusts and greed and impulses above all other principles, to the end that any kind of life together becomes predatory and abusive. We must offer them, instead, the one True God, incarnate in Jesus the only Christ, fully real and truly man, crucified at one place and time in Judaea while Pilate was procurator under the Emperor Tiberius, and risen again from the tomb in Jerusalem, and from thence returned to the heaven which is beyond our mortal and physical knowledge. As they are taught, and are baptized, and partake of the sacraments, then shall they know the Word Incarnate, and shall see the Godhead, and with us they may join in the work of the kingdom. And then with us they shall proclaim the mystery of faith:

Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!

Holding Up Our Lamps on the Day of the Lord

The Day of the Lord: who living under His covenant could not hope for it? The day when God's power washes over the earth and makes all things right. The days when God's enemies are finally and forever defeated: who could not hope for that day? Who among us does not want to see righteousness triumph and evil be thrown down?

Many years ago, Melissa happened to be listening to a local radio preacher, and he said, “You know, the Day of the Lord could be today! And wouldn't that make today extra special?” And even given how this utterly fails to grasp the awe that such a day should force upon us, let me just say that Amos rejects even the idea that we should expect to rejoice in that glorious deliverance—for he says, do not expect to be delivered, but expect instead that we might be that evil that the world is to be delivered from. And he says, “Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon.” So what is wrong, that the offerings required by the Law are rejected? Well, the answer is in the next verse: “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”

The same prescription is given by the prophet Micah:

“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

And when we turn to the parables, we see the same. The King in the parable of the Sheep and the Goats says to the latter: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’

It is through our love of neighbor that we show our love of God. Not that we are to neglect worship of God, but these prophesies and parables are directed to the religious, not to those outside the fold. They are directed to us. We believers, if our faith is to be true, must make it so through justice and mercy and humility, not just through prayer and worship. Nor should we grow complacent and contemptuous as if our works elevated us above others, saying, “Lord we thank you that we are not like other people, not like that banker over there or that social justice advocate over there.” Our works do not save; only Christ does that, the Christ who shall return in judgement.

For when that terrible day comes—and it will be terrible, no question about it: the Revelation spends chapter after chapter on it, what with the seven trumpets and the seven bowls of God's wrath poured out over the earth—we shall indeed be called to account, with only the grace of God in Christ speaking for us. And that day will come upon us in a flash, like lightning across the earth, said Jesus. The parable I have just discussed falls at the end of the same chapter which begins with today's gospel, and like the chapter just before it, the emphasis is upon being prepared. And for the bridesmaids, the point to catch is that the bridegroom is delayed; he is coming at an unexpected hour, not catching them by surprise by coming early, but indeed, his arrival is heralded. But because of the delay, the foolish have run out of oil.

Now, when looking at this closely, the thing seems to fall apart. Why are the wise so churlish? What does the oil represent? How about the merchants? But really, this is the wrong way to look at a parable. The oil doesn't have a specific meaning; it is simply something that is emblematic of the lack of foresight by the foolish. It is the flame that matters, the light of the lamp that welcomes the bridegroom. Therefore keeping the lamp lit signifies our continued attention to our work as Christians, though the bridegroom's arrival be two millennia coming, and still longer. And then, on that awful day, if we have been steadfast in the Lord, our faith worked through in justice and mercy, let it be as Paul promises: we shall be taken up in the new life, to meet our God as he comes to judge the earth. For it is in that faith that we can say, in the face of that dread day, Maranatha: even so, Lord, come.

And Thus We are Freed

Preached Good Friday, 2023

Who was the guilty?

Who was it that killed the Son of God?

Most immediately, a band of soldiers, who with hammers and nails bound Jesus to the instrument of his final and fatal torment, at the command of Pontius Pilate, who yielded to the will of the crowd and the Sanhedrin, led by Caiaphas, after Judas betrayed him in the garden. This is all spelled out in the gospel we have just heard. So it would seem that we have exhausted the list of those responsible.

And yet.

All of those I have named are long, long dead; indeed, we are within a few years of the two-thousandth anniversary of the crucifixion, if it has not already past. There is neither man nor woman living, it would seem, who is responsible for Jesus' death; no Jew, no gentile; no authority either Jewish or Roman (for all such governance has passed away); no soldier, no bystander. All responsibility has been ended by the passage of time, at least as the world would count it.

And yet.

And yet, we look to the ultimate reason for Jesus' death, and it is our salvation. We modern Christians are reduced to bystanders before the cross, with John and the women, or else fled like the other disciples. The passion reading of last Sunday puts the crowd's words upon our lips, but then we sit again, and become merely the audience to the passion play. If we are more sensitive perhaps we feel for his suffering, but either way we are at a safe remove from the events of that holy and terrible day.

And yet, as we sit before the cross, the altar bare and the sanctuary stripped, the responsibility still lies upon us all. It is our sins which brought about the incarnation; it is for us that Jesus was born the Christ. For us he walked the earth in human flesh; for us he taught and prayed; for us he was given over to suffering; and for us he was betrayed, abandoned, and tortured unto death. We who would be bystanders are yet participants, for it is our sinning, and the sinning of all humanity, which brought all this to pass, and while we comfort ourselves that our sins are small compared to those of others, in the end, it matters not. So what if one man hammers upon the nails in His hands and feet by murdering and theft and exploitation, and we feel that we have naught to confess but our petty contempt and shaving at the edges of the law: nonetheless, it is all the same hammering. And it is the same love of Jesus for all that laid him on the cross and stretched forth his hands and feet. Within the past few days I saw an illustration of Jesus washing the feet of various reviled figures, and yes, his salvation was made for them as well as us, and not because his salvation is so great as to encompass even them, but because it is so great as to encompass us, whether we see the full extent of our sins or not.

For the full extent of our sins is that they pervade our whole being. Sin is in our very nature, and the only “cure” is death. So therefore we are cured, on Calvary's hill, by the death of God himself, given up to the evils humanity has wrought upon one another, so that the Son of Man is offered up, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world as no other offering could.

And yet, we are still bound to the world, with every failing to feed and cloth and comfort the word, and by every harsh word, every theft, every slander, every injury. Each act against our fellows, even the contempt and malice we carry in our hearts: each chains us more securely to the dead weight of sin, that we may not escape the destruction it surely rains upon us. And yet, even knowing this, we hammer away, though we know not what we do.

And there is nobody to blame but ourselves. Judas may have betrayed Jesus, but it is we who put him in the garden. Caiaphas may have decided that Jesus was a threat to the Jewish authorities, but it was our sins which made those offensive teaching necessary. Pilate may have passed sentence, but we put the Son of Man before him. The Soldiers may have wielded the hammers and nails, but it is we who laid the Lamb of God on the cross. We are not innocent; we may not blame our neighbors, but only ourselves.

And yet, here we see that in Christ's suffering and death, all is forgiven. Salvation is accomplished, once and for eternity, upon the cross. Whatever we may think or feel about the matter, we free, and we who are baptized are bound to that salvation, so that every good we do likewise pours out the grace we have been given. Every witness to Jesus we make, be it through word or deed, manifests God's love. The cross is The End, at least to the first act of creation; sin is broken, though it continues until the end of all time, when death is destroyed forever.

And so, I am done today with “and yet”. For now we are in the age of “and thus”: and thus we see the glorious morn the result of sin's destruction is manifested. Thus we see our freedom realized. Thus we see our work set before us: to carry the church, Christ's body, his hands and feet and mouth, to all about us, and to enlarge that church through baptism in His death. And thus we look to that glorious day when all blame, one and for all, is burnt in the everlasting fire, that the eternity of salvation is harvested and gathered into God's house forever and ever. Amen.

Winnowing

Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.”

Jesus said, “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. Before him all the nations will be gathered, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”

Jesus said, “Then 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.”

Jesus died for our sins, and not for ours only, but the sins of the whole world: these are the words of the Apostle John. There is salvation freely given to all. And yet—well, Jesus, rather embarrassingly for some, spends a great deal of time on what John the Baptist called the winnowing of the people: the wheat to be gathered into God's granary, but the chaff to be burned. And Jesus likewise says that at the end of days, in the great harvest, the weeds will be taken and burned; when the flock is collected, the sheep will be separated from the goats. One will be taken, another left.

Preachers of a certain stripe spend a lot of time on the subject of this judgment. You may have heard of Jonathan Edwards' notorious sermon, “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God”, in which he speaks at length (for that is how things were done in those days) of how it is only the merciful hand of God which keeps us from the fires of perdition, and yet, the time will come (Edwards says) when this forbearance will end, and only those whose trust is in the Lord will be kept safe from the flames. This is the classic language of revivalist Christianity, but the same focus on judgment is central to late medieval piety. Edwards' image of God dangling souls like spiders on threads, over the the fires of hell—well, I think it is inaccurate as an expression of Jesus' teachings. It implies that God's mercy is capricious, and that is not how Jesus depicts it, nor the prophets before him, nor John of the Revelation after him.

No, this judgment, this winnowing, this sorting out of humanity is ordained in the mind of the Father, inexorable, its time set, yet hidden until the day when Christ returns and all accounts are settled. Should we then fear it? Yes, we should, but no, we shouldn't. Jesus simply spends too much time on warning us about the sorting of the harvest that I should brush those warnings off. And it is striking that Jesus, John the Baptist, and the prophets all agree that this sorting is on the basis of works—but not in avoiding sins as most people think of them, for the sheep who are saved are those who fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, and visited the sick and imprisoned. It is the works of mercy that save, and as James teaches, these works show our faith. And if we are merciful out of fear of damnation, well, is that not faith?

And yet, we should not fear, for God is with us, and if any man sin, we have Jesus as our advocate. Focusing too much on the fear of judgment tempts us to the surpassing sin of setting ourselves up in judgment, and even though Jesus says “Judge not”, again it is quite popular for us preachers to rail against this or that sin, and then to slip over into condemning and persecuting those sinners. And this is so obviously merciless and so obviously an arrogation of God's authority that even had Jesus not explicitly condemned it, we should infer its sinfulness from the whole of the rest of his teaching. The urge to pray “Lord, we thank thee that we are not like other, sinful people” is so strong that it takes constant vigilance, which is to be found in humility, to avoid alienating ourselves from our fellows, and therefore from God. The new kingdom of God is not in self-purity (though we should know and resist our impurities), but in mutual love: not in separation, but in inclusion; not in division, but in unity. It is not a kingdom of judges, but servants.

And that kingdom is not far off. It is near, it is now, and yet it is also coming, for Christ shall return and being this old world to its end. But none may know when, as proven by all those who have falsely prophesied a date. Each such predicted day comes and goes, for he is coming at an unexpected time. And yet, he is always about to come, for to us it is not about dates and times, but about our expectation, that we should make ourselves ready, like the wise virgins. The years, the centuries, the millennia stretch on, and still we wait, but still, Christ's return is always tomorrow, and our work, Christ's work in the world cannot wait, and not because our work makes the kingdom, but because our work is of the kingdom. We do not build the kingdom of God on earth; we manifest it, when we love God and love our neighbor. And as we draw others to Christ, both in worship and in service to one another, we further the knowledge of salvation, that the harvest may be increased without end.

Wisdom! Let Us Attend!

“Wisdom! Let us attend!”

These words, or variations on them, are spoken four times in the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, the main Eucharistic rite of the eastern churches. They introduce each of the readings, and are repeated before the Creed is said. The great church of Constantinople was dedicated to Holy Wisdom—Hagia Sophia.

Well, let me tell you, I tried to attend to some wisdom in writing this, because the first reading is relatively new to the lectionary. And, well, one commentator on this passage began by saying, “On even the most 'ordinary' Sunday it can be difficult to preach and teach from the book of Proverbs. It may seem well nigh impossible to do so on Trinity Sunday.” I did not find this reassuring, though I have refrained from calling our priest and dumping the problem back on her. So let me see what wisdom can be found here.

The chapter from which our first reading is taken contrasts with that preceding, which describes an equally metaphorical, adulterous woman who leads the unwary astray. Our first verses today are part of that contrast: Wisdom speaks from the heights, from the gates, while her rival roams the streets, hidden. But the main contrast is between the two paths down which they lead their followers: one to sin, but the other, of Wisdom, to righteousness. The reading then skips over a passage on the virtues of wisdom, which on this day, perhaps do not need to be dwelt upon, for it resumes at the section most relevant to the day: the relationship of Wisdom to the Godhead.

Most of the commentators I came across equated Wisdom with the Son: Jesus, the Word of God. And there is something to be said for this reading. If nothing else, the parallel with the opening of John's gospel is strong:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

Likewise, Paul refers to Jesus as the “wisdom of God” in his first letter to the Corinthians. But I do not think think it is quite so simple. For one thing, our reading today says that “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,” and we are instructed in the creed that the Son is “begotten, not made”. Furthermore, biblical figures of speech are not material for mechanical deduction. We name both the church and the bread of communion as the body of Christ, and therefore should it not be the case that, being members of this body, we are therefore also Wisdom?

No, I do not think that Wisdom is to be identified with the Word alone, and thus with Jesus. Wisdom is in Him, as she is in the Father and in the Spirit, but she comes forth from their action together, just as creation and redemption and holiness come from the Godhead as a whole, working as one. She speaks in scripture; she is revealed when the LORD God acts in history; she is heard in the tongues of the Spirit. But she herself is not one or even all of these things.

Wisdom calls us to seek God, but the finding is a strange thing. Surely it is wise to align oneself to whatever underlies existence, but how to do it: that is quite the problem. We who have found the LORD God, or have been found by him, are confronted with not just some philosophical under-girding of reality, but with a personality whose will confronts us in the history of salvation. And in this confrontation, it is Wisdom who stands at our side, not as advocate (for that is Jesus' care), but as guide. She shows us right pathways; she warns of danger; she counsels patience and forbearance. In this wise, are we not reminded of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who will guide us into all the truth, and will declare to us the things that are to come? But I say, again, the Spirit and Wisdom are not one and the same; and yet when the Spirit leads us to understanding of the word of scripture: there, Wisdom is found. When the Spirit inspires our worship, that we perceive Jesus in the sacraments: there, Wisdom is found. When the Spirit moves us to acts of charity: there, Wisdom is found.

And the Father, of whom the Son, the Word is begotten, is He Wisdom? No, and yet Wisdom is his creation, as all else is. But that creation is through and with the Son and the Spirit, thus, so does Wisdom issue forth from the Three in One, so Wisdom is in the words of Jesus when he says, “whoever who has seen me has seen the Father”, as Wisdom is in the visions of the prophets and the writings of the evangelists and the letters of the apostles. But she speaks even before this, for it is she who points to scripture; it is she who points to the church; it is she who leads us to worship; and it is she also who shows to us our sin and corruption.

It is written that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of Wisdom,”—indeed, it is written in the very chapter following our reading. And here we take up our final thread of Wisdom, for in that chapter, she has set up a feast:

To those without sense she says, ‘Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.’

It is that last phrase that is the key: “walk in the way of insight.” Wisdom is more than knowledge of God, if indeed one may use that word about the LORD who is beyond knowledge. Wisdom teaches us how to live so that we look to God in every thought and act of our lives. In every act of love, of worship, of thanksgiving, of charity, of reproof, of self-discipline, of leadership, of submission: there we may find Wisdom as our guide. We hear Wisdom when we are taught that God sent his only Son, God from God, to live with us and die for us and break the bonds of death; we hear it in account of the first Pentecost, when the Spirit came upon the disciples. We hear it in the councils of the church, where the creed which we shall shortly say was formulated to express the mystery of our faith. But hearing is not enough. We must return Wisdom's invitation and dwell with here so that she dwells in us. Therefore attend to Wisdom, so that we may live as Isaiah calls us to do: “Let us walk in the light of the LORD.”

Surrendering Unto Caesar

Over the summer, at McLean Bible Church, there was a crisis of leadership: the election of elders failed, and a second election had to be held. And the reason? Well, according to the chief pastor, David Pratt, as he related in a sermon on July fourth, a group was trying to take control of the church apparently to replace leadership with people who would espouse a more conservative line—that is, a more politically conservative line, for among other things, a rumor was passed that the three candidates were going to have church buildings sold to Muslims. And there certainly is a struggle going on: in researching this I found a Facebook page called “Save McLean Bible Church” which states the following:

MBC members have lost all confidence in the Elder Board and Pastoral Staff. The congregation is witnessing corruption, lack of transparency, deception, slandering, intimidation, and use of the pulpit to bully members of the church. The elder board and pastoral team continue to lie and peddle lies after lies. The vision and purpose of MBC is to make a gospel impact on Metro Washington with the message of Jesus Christ. This vision led to making disciples among all quarters of DC Metro area, including the influencers and policy makers in Washington, therefore, impacting the nations and even the world. We believed that this was a strategic mission because of the following reality: “Change Washington, change the world.” Join us in restoring McLean Bible Church to the purpose and vision for which it was founded upon!

In the end, the second election did seat the same candidates; even the first was quite close to the 75% margin needed to elect. The opposition was clearly a minority of the congregation. Nevertheless Pastor Pratt has been attacked in many places for his supposed leftist politics, as has Phil Vischer, whom you might recognize as one of the creators of the VeggieTales Christian videos. Another prominent evangelical pastor told Peter Wehner of The Atlantic that “Nearly everyone tells me there is at the very least a small group in nearly every evangelical church complaining and agitating against teaching or policies that aren’t sufficiently conservative or anti-woke.”

And then of course there are the preachers who have gone all in on politics. To take just one example, we have Franklin Graham, Billy's son, who posted on Facebook: “The House Democrats impeached Trump because they hate him and want to do as much damage as they can. And these 10, from his own party, joined in the feeding frenzy. It makes you wonder what the thirty pieces of silver were that Speaker Pelosi promised for this betrayal.” Thus he cast her as Caiaphas and the ten congressmen as Judas. I could go on for some time on this, for it is appallingly easy to find preachers claiming that the COVID vaccine is the Mark of the Beast, and not too difficult to find people making supposedly prophetic utterances that the previous president will be restored to office by this or that date.

My purpose, however, is not a enumeration of the sins of other churches, and I suspect that most of you already have some awareness of this, if not a grasp of its extent or depth. Given the day, though, I will spend a little time elaborating their vision of the Kingdom of God. First, I note the claim that “America is a Christian nation,” with the implication if not outright assertion that as a nation it is beset by satanic forces. The church, and thus the kingdom, is allegiance, and their purpose is first of all to defend it against outsiders. And thus, the second characteristic: the identification of church purpose with national purpose, which tends to reduce preaching to a reiteration of their social mores. Finally, their vision is apocalyptic: they look to the day when God's rule will be established again on earth, a rule gained by the crushing of God's enemies, which, of course, are also their enemies, and therefore their enemies are also God's enemies.

My description is, I will admit, something of a caricature, but the point in the end is that this vision is both militant and partisan. And here Pilate fits right in, for his question to Jesus reveals his concern: is Jesus a threat to the Roman state? Once he establishes that Jesus claims no civil authority, Pilate loses interest, and in the end only condemns Jesus to pacify the crowd and appease the Jewish authorities. Of course, we know better: we know that in the end Jesus' claim over all is God's claim, and earthly powers shall be swept away with the old earth itself. And yet, when we consider the many parables which describe the kingdom of God, they do not describe its establishment among humanity as a military campaign: it is growth, it is return on investment, it is the yield of the harvest, winnowed from among the weeds and barren places. The labor is that of the farmer, not of the soldier.

God's kingdom is not of this world, and yet, we are not apart from it—not yet. And as we act in the world, well, Jesus and the apostles teach us to minister to its citizens, not only by evangelizing and preaching, but in ordinary acts of love and mercy. This is the second great commandment, and we are taught that the neighbor whom we must love is the Samaritan, the Jew, the Muslim; those of other nations and races; those both above and below our social class; even the liar, the thief, and the murderer.

And, well, OK. We collect food for the poor, and we send them coats, and we make up gifts for the sailors, and no doubt we give to any number of other charitable works. Nothing wrong with that, though we are wrong if we think we work our salvation by those acts. But that is not all we must do, and we are confronted by the prospect of the ballot box and the judgment it asks of us. As to that, there are differing opinions. Anthony Bloom, the late Orthodox archbishop in Britain, once said in an interview:

The Church must never speak from a position of strength. It ought not to be one of the forces influencing this or that state. The Church ought to be, if you will, just as powerless as God himself, which does not coerce but which calls and unveils the beauty and the truth of things without imposing them. As soon as the Church begins to exercise power, it loses its most profound characteristic which is divine love [i.e.] the understanding of those it is called to save and not to smash.

And one could go on from this to assert that we as voters are not to consider ourselves agents of the church. I don't choose that for myself, and on the other side one may count Dietrich Bonhoeffer as an advocate for and embodiment of the need for the Christian to be involved in the world. Even among the Orthodox one may recall Archbishop Iakovos of the Greek church marching at Martin Luther King's side—literally so. But I think all of them would have agreed that our approach to the power that positions of authority provide must be reluctant, humble, other-serving, and ever-mindful of both the rebellion and the cruelty that lurk within our hearts. Bishop Bloom is surely correct in claiming that we are not ordained to rule the world for Christ.

Thus, when we look upon our political opponents, well, yes, obviously we must not demonize them. Easy to say, not so easy to do. One comes upon political candidates whose statements are cruel, contemptuous, full of lies and invective, and how hard it is to vote against them “in love”, and how hard not direct our own contempt against their supporters! And how easy it is to award those of our own affiliation with approval and congratulate ourselves simply for opposing the other side.

There is a further danger. Earlier I spoke of the confusion of the church's will with that of “conservative” culture. We here are not immune to that. “Culture catechizes,” says Alan Jacobs, professor of humanities at Baylor. We are taught by radio, the news, our Facebook feeds, our college professors, our friends and our parents—well, at least so the latter hope. And in this age it is so very easy to filter out those who do not reinforce our own urges and identity. We are taught by the voices of the world day in and day out, and then we come to church and spend maybe a few hours hearing, God willing, the voice of the Holy Spirit rather than that of the spirits of the age. And thus Jacobs asked, “So if people are getting one kind of catechesis for half an hour per week, and another for dozens of hours per week, which one do you think will win out?” And he continues, “This is true of both the Christian left and the Christian right. People come to believe what they are most thoroughly and intensively catechized to believe, and that catechesis comes not from the churches but from the media they consume, or rather the media that consume them. The churches have barely better than a snowball’s chance in hell of shaping most people’s lives.” Perhaps we want to believe otherwise, but it requires a constant effort to set aside the tenets, the prejudices, and, well, the communal sins of our own communities. It is terribly difficult to separate out what the world teaches about solving the problems of our lives and of those around us from the command that we love those around us; we are very much prone to confuse the need with the method. And we in this place are especially so tempted: well-educated, many of us set into positions within the government or its contractors, it is so very easy to know that we know what is best, without having to listen to others.

This world of constant chatter: it easily tempts us into unearned anger. Jacobs again: “What all those media want is engagement, and engagement is most reliably driven by anger and hatred. They make bank when we hate each other. And so that hatred migrates into the Church, which doesn’t have the resources to resist it. The real miracle here is that even so, in the mercy of God, many people do find their way to places of real love of God and neighbor.” Yes, perhaps there is much to be angry about, and yes, even Jesus showed anger. But anger is consuming, and anger against others eventually drives out love and embeds hatred within the heart.

So where does this leave us, aspiring to the kingdom of heaven?

Well, I have no simple answer. I mean, there is a simple answer, which is to love God with all our hearts and minds and souls, and to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to love one another as Christ loves us. Simple, and yet in our fallen lives, finding room to love can be hard, even impossible in our sinfulness. But we do have some things to plainly avoid, through Christ's teaching and example. We may not lord it over others; we may not seek to harm others; we may not put our own lusts above the needs of others, nor may we be indifferent to their suffering. And therefore, as much as we participate in politics, it must be to the service of others, not to do battle with them. For Jesus' kingdom is not of this world: his strength is in our weakness, his authority is in our submission, and his eternal reign is manifest in every passing act of love we carry out. But I cannot tell you exactly what those acts should be, and I would very much doubt another person who claimed otherwise. It is our own judgment, under the direction of love, which we must take to the ballot box, and may the Spirit ever guide us there. And there, we shall fail, over and over, in carrying out the work of the kingdom, but if anyone sins they have an advocate in Jesus Christ, who redeems not only our sins, but those of the whole world—even our enemies and persecutors. The kingdom of God is folly to the world, and we cannot defend its borders through force of might; but those borders are extended in every act of love and mercy, until the day when, as the Father ordains, the Son shall return in glory, and under the Spirit love shall hold sway everywhere, world without end. Amen.

We might as well be Nazarenes

preached on July 4 for Proper 9, Year B

In today's gospel we have a pair of stories in which miracles of healing play a part, but in what seem at first in opposite ways. The first story has Jesus returning to his home town, in which he receives a decidedly cold welcome. To us, accustomed to the modern trappings of celebrity, it is a strange reaction, for what modern place would not lay claim to a miracle worker? Perhaps the strangest statement, though, is this: “he could do no deed of power there.” For those of us who have heard this, every third year, for some time, perhaps it does not jump out at us. And yet, consider the implication: that the second person of the Trinity, God incarnate, to whom we ascribe all power and omnipotence not only because it is so revealed, but because it seems obvious—he is in this place incapable of exercising it.

Except.

The sentence continues, “except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.” One's first impulse is to read this as simply illustrating the diminishing of Jesus' power, but there is a message in this little coda. Recall in last week's story, Jesus spoke to the woman with the hemorrhage and said, “daughter, your faith has made you well.” Of course, we cannot be sure, because the gospel does not say so, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that those who came for healing were also made well through faith. But of the rest, “he was amazed at their unbelief.” For surely they had heard tell of the wonders he had done: their words testify to that. And yet the fact that this was the boy they had known, who had grown up on their town, the son of a carpenter, somehow this was enough to “offend” them. And yet, had they heeded scripture, they should not have been so surprised, for in the history of salvation it is recorded over and over that God chose not the high nor the mighty, but the childless to be the father of many, the second over the firstborn, the least over the most. Likewise, the disciples were ordinary men, seemingly picked by Jesus at random. Mary sang, “he hath put down the mighty from their thrones, and hath exalted the humble and meek,” and so then is Jesus himself: God made humble, so that man shall be exalted, indeed, raised to sit at the right hand of the Father. But his former neighbors did not, it seems, remember their scripture.

Instead, familiarity bred contempt, and they raised up for themselves a stumbling block, and out of these blocks, made their town a fortress against the power of the incarnate Word. And note further: from many other stories, we can see that doubt is not necessarily an impediment to the entrance of divine power into our lives; Jesus says that even the smallest seed of faith is enough to call it forth. But contempt is different, and, well, we live in a contemptuous age. You need only to listen how we practice politics to see that. And as many a parable relates, how we treat our fellow humans is how we treat our God.

Now, our second story sees no such impediment; indeed, it turns away from Nazareth and into the rest of Judaea. Here we have the first mission of the apostles, though they are not named as such, and as Jesus sends them out in pairs, we may recall his promise that “wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I will be in the midst of them.” And in this first mission, we see the same division between faith and rejection: faith brings forth the power of God through the hands of the disciples, but where they are rejected, the implication is that this rejection is not innocent. The disciples are not to harm those who do not accept the gospel word, but they are to shake off the dust off their feet as a testimony against those who reject it. I am reminded of a story of related by Anthony Bloom, the great Orthodox writer and bishop in Britain. The story is of a very nasty, hateful woman, who unaccountably throws a turnip at a beggar to chase him away. After she dies, so the story goes, she is judged and sent to the flames of hell, but there, she sees the hand of Jesus holding out a turnip, and he says to her, “grab hold of this.” Even the smallest good, it seems, may give faith something to grasp, but conversely, both stories today teach that rejection of the divine touch is also within our grasp.

It is quite tempting to view ourselves in the position of the disciples, going out into the world to spread the word and power of Jesus, when we read the second story. And I would not discourage this reading, for, of course, we are also so commissioned. But here, today as on every Sunday, we are the hearers. And in our familiarity with its message, we might as well be Nazarenes ourselves. And thus the question is set before us, in every act we make: are we ourselves to be bearers of the word, or do we treat it with contempt? The first way is life; the second, to turn away from it. Therefore, choose life, that you may have it abundantly.

In the Flesh

A piece of broiled fish, which he took and ate. An ordinary meal, an ordinary act, done every minute of every day all over the globe. And yet, it is a sign. The risen Jesus took food, and ate, ate like any man: put it to his lips, in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. And thus, the sign: Jesus is risen, truly, in reality, in the flesh. It is the fulfillment of the incarnation revealed: God has united to humanity in all its fullness, walking, breathing, eating, sleeping, in all ways human.

An artist friend of mine was once commissioned to paint Jesus “in the act of resurrecting.” We had a good chuckle over the image immediately brought to mind, of Jesus shoving aside the shroud and sitting up as if he were about to get out of bed and go to breakfast. I do not think one can so capture the miracle itself, and no gospel says a thing about it: the most we have is the story from Matthew of the earthquake and of the angel rolling away the stone. The miracle is and must remain a mystery, unseen in the tomb, unexplained in words, uncomprehended by the human mind. And yet, her patron was on the right track, in a way, for what he wanted to see, in the frame, was the resurrection not as a symbol or metaphor or myth; he wanted to see it in the flesh. And that is what today's reading provides: a Jesus who can be touched, whose flesh is still marked by the wounds he suffered, who breathes and eats and drinks and walks and speaks like any other human being. No ghost, no vision: he is still material, though transformed and raised, not just to life, but to a new life which transcends the old. His bodily being is what the old Adam was intended to be, but more, and when the first heaven and the first earth are passed away, and all things are made new in the new heaven and new earth, we too shall become what he already is: the new flesh of the new covenant, made suitable for the life everlasting to come. And not only our flesh, but our hearts, our souls, our minds, for as Jesus opened the disciples' minds, so ours too are taught, through them, through their writings and those of the church after them. We do not understand everything, but we know what is crucial:

Christ has died;

Christ is risen;

Christ will come again.

And thus we proclaim to all humanity repentance and forgiveness of sins, and we go out baptizing in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so that all may be joined into the resurrected flesh of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to who be power and glory forever and ever. Amen.

In the Wreckage

This night, we look upon what, for all the world, looks to be the wreckage of the divine plan. The angel said to Mary, “the Lord God will give to him the the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And where is that throne this night? Where is that kingdom? Mary said to Elizabeth, “He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imaginations of their hearts.” And where slept Pilate, and the priests, on that night, while the body of the incarnate God lay cold in the tomb? “He has put down the might from their thrones, and have exalted those of low degree.” Truly?

How did it come to this? Who was the guilty? Who was it despised him? Well, the authorities of course: the priests and the Pharisees, Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas—and their guards and soldiers. Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him directly, and the rest of the disciples, who fled into the night. The mob of Jerusalem, crying for his death. Here we have just heard the story of their collective treachery, as John tells it, though his version is not so very different from that of the other three evangelists.

And yet, does not the story range further? Who was the guilty? Who was it despised him? Was it their treachery alone, and not our own as well? No! Alas, my treason has also undone him—mine, and ours, and all of humanity. When he was hungry, and we did not feed him, or thirsty and did not give him drink, or naked and did not clothe him, or a stranger and did not welcome him, or a prisoner and did not visit him, we betrayed him; when we prayed, “we thank you, God, that we are not like those over there,” we betrayed him; when we made the dollar large and the measure small, we betrayed him. He carried all our sins, for in sinning against God, we sinned against his incarnation. We denied him; we crucified him, we and the whole fallen world.

And so, seemingly, the world got what it wanted: God made man, tortured to death. All was well with the world, again: the rich and powerful returned to their homes and slept the sleep of the self-righteous, Jesus' followers in disarray and the crowds turned away from him. The only thing left, seemingly, was for the women to return after the sabbath to finish the burial of God's revolt against his own people. But it is this seeming wreckage which is the point, for as is attested from the beginning of scripture, it is the willfulness of his creatures that made this wreckage. Our desires are warped, perverted, hateful; our hunger is greed, our will tyranny, our anger vicious. We have made a world built on exploitation, contempt, abuse, and war, and seemingly cannot stop it, except with more of the same.

And so, at the cross, the world got its way, and God did not resist, for it is this very lack of resistance through which the battle is won. Good did not triumph over evil through a show of divine force; it triumphed by making evil irrelevant. Even as sin got its way, it lost, because it could only “win” by bending creation, in all its goodness, against its creator; and Jesus did not bend, but instead laid his limbs upon the cross, transfixed in seeming helplessness against evil's force. And thus he lifted all with him, as he was lifted up to die. We too are are helpless in the face of evil, both its victims and its perpetrators, and we cannot combat it on its own terms; but in faith, now, that is a different story. But faith means trust in the weakness of Jesus on Calvary, in this world, and faith means directing our actions towards the care of our fellows, friends, family, and foes alike, but also trusting in God for our salvation. And it is that faith, made real through our works, that will bring us, on that last day, into the joy of the resurrection into which we are baptized, when all evil is wiped away for eternity, and when the new Jerusalem is founded forever on the wreckage of the old, dead world of sin.

Disobedient and Defiling

Preached on 16 August 2020

In today's gospel, we come into the middle of one story, and leave with another. We pick up the first after Jesus has contended with the Pharisees again, their bone to pick this time being that, against tradition, his disciples do not wash their hands before eating. And Jesus condemns them once again for their hypocrisy and for making up rules to escape from their holy obligations, but then he continues into the statements we hear today. “It is what comes out of the mouth that defiles;” that is plain enough, isn't it? The lies we speak, the slander we utter, the excuses we offer: these are the pollution we spread. Our acts of infidelity, of wrath, of treachery, of contempt, of theft: these are what alienate us from God, and thus from life.

I would think that, for us, this observation is so ingrained and so obvious as to be hardly worth making, especially for the overwhelming majority of Christians who were never subject to the laws of Moses and its rules of ritual purity. And yet, in this world of sin, the opposite is so often taught. We live in an angry, deceitful, contemptuous, greedy age, in which lying, cheating, violence, and just plain rudeness are exalted. We have created a new American religion of Politics, with its own rites of ritual purity, and in its name spew all manner of invective. And then there is the other great American God, Money, for nothing must interfere with Sacred Business and Commerce. Now, Jesus spends a great deal of time preaching about money, and many of the parables use investment as a metaphor for the work of the kingdom, and he even commends a dishonest servant for using his cheating of his master in order to win him friends. But we cannot serve God and Mammon; greed in our hearts issues forth and defiles us as certainly as any other disease of the heart.

We are so enmeshed in this world of sin, that without the Spirit upon us, it would seem hopeless to prevent our self-defilement. And here the words of Paul as we have just heard them make a strange claim: that it was meant this way. One hears, in the story of the Jewish kingdom, a depressing litany of kings who did not do as they were commanded, and before that, the story of the Israelites on the way through the desert is, if anything, worse. And in the end, the kingdom was split, and then each part destroyed in turn; but as we are told through the prophets, the Lord God did not abandon his people. In time, they were gathered back to Judea, and then, in the reign of Herod, God became, through the Son, incarnate in humanity, and brought salvation once and for all. Their disobedience was against God's will, but their disobedience came to serve God's plan of mercy. Therefore, when we sin—for who can fail to do so?—we are yet made clean through Jesus, even we who are not of Abraham's seed, and our sin provides the occasion for the glorification of God through this mercy.

Which brings us to the second story. The Canaanite woman has the rare distinction of arguing with Jesus and winning. And she bluntly acknowledges that she is outside God's people, and yet Jesus extends God's mercy to encompass her. Or is it a stretch? Her argument, after all, is that God's grace is great enough to extend beyond his own people the Jews, to which Jesus agrees. But what is it that leads him to agree? It is her faith. Faith is what extends the reach of salvation; faith is the vehicle of grace. And ultimately, faith is what has brought all of us, Jew or gentile, into the body of Christ.

And yet, faith without works, as James says, is dead. By this he does not mean that we earn salvation through our acts, but that in knowing that it is what comes from our mouth that defiles, we seek what purity we can, in acts of worship not only on our lips, but in how we live, in charity and harmony with each other and those around us. Our religion must not be empty observance and pious sayings, but needs be manifest in every word and deed by which we help—or harm—those about us. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we do the work of the kingdom of God, and look to its ultimate fulfillment on the last day, when every defiling word and deed will come to reckoning.

The Cross, the Throne

On Tuesday the 24th of June, 2014, Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, was invited to sit upon the Iron Throne of Westeros while visiting the sets of Game of Thrones. She declined the honor, perhaps because she did not feel herself properly robed for the occasion; but I have read that it is the ancient tradition of her line that the English monarch does not sit upon foreign thrones. It might also be observed that occupancy of that seat of power tended to bode ill for one's survival prospects, but this did not discourage many claimants from fighting for it, just as Elizabeth's predecessors waged the Wars of the Roses to gain what is now her seat.

And the throne of Jesus? Our thoughts first turn to the images of the Revelation, in which the word “throne” appears forty-four times in twenty-two chapters. This is the testimony of John:

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.” And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, “Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.” And the four beasts said, “Amen.” And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever.

And this is the prophecy of Isaiah:

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.” And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

This is kingship in our mortal understanding: the monarch of heaven and earth, whose glory is beyond human toleration; whose rule is absolute; whose power the angels make manifest from creation to the world's doom. The temptation to arrogate these to ourselves is so very strong: to rule over others, to demand worship and servitude, to revel in wealth and pomp is so very appealing, even consuming; and when poisoned by our sin, so very cruel and destructive. Besides those of nations and states, we make thrones of industry and commerce, that we may rule over the work of others and command the fruits of their labors; even in our households, we establish our tyranny. We lust after power, and thus subjugate others; we lust after goods, and thus make slaves whose labor we exploit; we lust after adulation, and demand toadies and sycophants. Our kingship is entirely of this fallen world: cruel, greedy, arrogant and tyrannical. The glory of the throne of heaven we cannot reproduce, try as we might. But there is another throne, not welded of swords as in Westeros, nor cunningly wrought of stone or fine woods covered in gold and gems as in halls of state. This throne is made of two rough boards and a few nails, and he who reigns from it was crowned not with gold or silver, but with thorns. He who hung upon it (for it offers no seat) was not there worshipped, but mocked; wielded no sword nor scepter of power and authority; received no comfort or riches beyond a drink of ruined wine, but instead suffered under the greatest physical cruelty the state could devise. This throne was not to be desired for wealth or power or renown, but indeed delivers only (as the world sees it) humiliation, helplessness, pain and finally death. It is the ultimate expression of the world's contempt for its king.

And yet in this throne, the cross, there is all the power of the ages. In the cross there is exaltation and victory, abundance and life without measure. The cross is more glorious than every royal throne, every boardroom, every presidential desk, every seat by which men and women lord it over others; and its glory is in precise proportion to the world's contempt. It is from the cross that Jesus, the Son of the Father Almighty, the Lamb of God, the Word made Flesh, reigns over this age, so that in the age to come the throne of the Most High may blaze with the glory of a creation remade through his death.

And John tells us, in the mystery he relates, that there are other thrones in the new heaven, thrones for men and women reborn in Christ. If His throne be the cross, so must ours also be, and therefore he calls us to take up our crosses and follow him. The path to salvation gives, not power, not riches, not comfort, but death to the old life of sin—and life to those who so die. Thus our reign on earth is one of sacrifice, of relinquishing the rule which we so very much desire. It is to give and not to seize, to serve and not to dictate; this is the rule we are given, and our realms are not ours to command and exploit, but instead belong to the weak and powerless and hungry and abandoned and despised to whom we are called to minister.

This is not to say that I think that a Christian is forbidden to be a politician or a business executive or a bureaucrat or any other position of authority and title. Jesus numbered among his followers members of the Sanhedrin, Roman officers, and others of privilege and power, and while he asked of one young man that the latter abandon his wealth, it is not something he asked of all. On the other hand, I cannot say the opposite either, for Jesus did after all say that a rich man's passage to heaven is like unto that of a camel through a needle's eye. But surely if we are wealthy, if we are powerful, if we have others at our command and service, the way in which we exercise such office must reflect the service and sacrifice Jesus made of himself. If we must command and accumulate, we must be mindful that in the end it cannot be to our gratification and magnification, but to God's. I note that for all of the Crown's wealth and panoply, Queen Elizabeth's job is to serve through taking her presence to her people, a duty that by all accounts she takes with great seriousness. Even on her own, literal throne she is merely the mouthpiece of others; it was thus an entirely appropriate symbol that she refused the seat of the murderous, arrogant tyrants of Westeros, mere prop though it may be.

The thrones we erect on earth are likewise but imitations, nay, idols of that of heaven. Our own rule is still sinful, for while we are still of this earth, we carry its taint even as we also manifest the glory of its creator; and that earthly rule shall perish not only as we do, but in the lake of fire which will consume all that is false on the last day. But we may, through grace, extend the rule of heaven as its ministers, by giving up our lives to its service, and walking in righteousness and holiness all our days. And in so doing, we may enthrone King Jesus in our hearts, where he may live and reign forever, with the Father and the Spirit, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Prayers and Bargains

For Year C Proper 12, using the Genesis 18 reading

We pick up from last Sunday's reading in Genesis, with Abraham speaking to the men, the presence of the Lord, as they prepare to go to Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham is concerned, because Sodom is where his nephew Lot is living. And thus we have one of the most peculiar prayers in scripture: negotiations for the fate of those cities, negotiations which seemingly are completely successful and yet which are in the end utterly futile. For the men arrive at Sodom, where Lot takes them into his house, where the men of Sodom try and fail to break in for the express purpose of raping the divine guests. Lot and his family are made to flee, and the two cities are made the, um, fire and brimstone standard of the Lord's wrath, becoming watchwords through scripture both of wanton and willful immorality, and of divine retribution.

Abraham's deal-making with God is not listed among the seven types of prayer which our church commends to us. We are most familiar with petition (that is, asking God to do things for us) and intercession (asking him to do things for others), and I suppose that Abraham's bargaining could be classified as some form of the latter. We participate in other prayers on a Sunday, even if we do not name them as such: adoration (that is, worship), praise, thanksgiving, oblation (which is to say, making offerings), and penitence are all elements found in our liturgy, and they too are all ways of praying. But as a rule, the church does not encourage attempting to cut deals with the Lord God, and in reading on the subject, one is inclined to agree that it is unwise.

As to how we should pray: first, Jesus gives us the example of the Lord's Prayer, as related in Luke rather than the more familiar version from Matthew. But it is set in a different context in this gospel, for in Matthew it is delivered as part of the Sermon on the Mount, in the center of a longer passage on praying in general. Luke, however, relates it very briefly, and then follows it with a parable on the efficacy of praying. The Father, he says, will hear us and give us what is good, an egg, not a scorpion, and not because we merit it. Indeed, Jesus say, if a man will give another what he asks for simply to get rid of his persistent begging, how more so will the Father grant us out of love.

It is a statement to justify faith, a statement of hope. But it is also one of the hardest statements of the gospel, because so often it seems that nothing is forthcoming, not even no. Now in Matthew we are told not to make a public spectacle of our praying, and several other commands besides, but even those are not enough to account for the many times we sit on our beds, and beg and plead with God, and receive a silence that is not even stony, but only empty. Over the years many have tried to explain this, to provide reassurance, and even to deny that it represents any scandal. I will do no such thing, but only return to the oaks at Mamre.

Abraham's prayer is answered, oh, yes, more immediately and personally than any of us have a right to expect. And the Lord God does not go back on his word. And yet, the men arrive at Sodom, and are accosted, and they all but drag Lot and his family out of the city. The divine wrath rains down, and Sodom is no more. For all the fashionable universalism of our day, the warning is always there, that we must show our faith through our works to be truly faithful, as James writes; else, there is the fate of Sodom, and of the tares harvested with the wheat.

But one last look at the parable. A man goes to his neighbor, and his neighbor grants his prayer. And is it not so with us? God's purpose is not carried out only in miracles; we ourselves are his hands (as St. Teresa wrote), and we are the answers to the prayers of others. If the poor are to get their daily bread, then it is we who are well-endowed who must provide it; they must not be forced to rely on manna from heaven. It is we who can comfort, and can heal, and nourish. It is we who can refrain from wrath, and contempt, and treachery. It is our sin that is the cause of many of the world's ills—indeed, from the teaching of Genesis 3, we are responsible for all of it. But as we repent and refrain from sinning, we are also advancing the kingdom, so that “your will be done” can be realized in our daily lives.

We are not always answered as we please; we do not always hear the answer. And yet we are reassured, there is an answer, if we would but talk to God, the God who knows our needs before we ask, and what in our blindness we cannot ask. Therefore, I ask of you, pray without ceasing, to the Father who sees all, and hears all, and loves all through his Son, Jesus Christ, in the power of the Spirit. AMEN.

Antique and Holy Advice

Beloved in the Lord: Our Savior Christ, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood as a sign and pledge of his love, for the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of his death, and for a spiritual sharing in his risen life. For in these holy Mysteries we are made one with Christ, and Christ with us; we are made one body in him, and members one of another.

Having in mind, therefore, his great love for us, and in obedience to his command, his Church renders to Almighty God our heavenly Father never-ending thanks for the creation of the world, for his continual providence over us, for his love for all mankind, and for the redemption of the world by our Savior Christ, who took upon himself our flesh, and humbled himself even to death on the cross, that he might make us the children of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, and exalt us to everlasting life. But if we are to share rightly in the celebration of those holy Mysteries, and be nourished by that spiritual Food, we must remember the dignity of that holy Sacrament. I therefore call upon you to consider how Saint Paul exhorts all persons to prepare themselves carefully before eating of that Bread and drinking of that Cup.

For, as the benefit is great, if with penitent hearts and living faith we receive the holy Sacrament, so is the danger great, if we receive it improperly, not recognizing the Lord’s Body. Judge yourselves, therefore, lest you be judged by the Lord. Examine your lives and conduct by the rule of God’s commandments, that you may perceive wherein you have offended in what you have done or left undone, whether in thought, word, or deed. And acknowledge your sins before Almighty God, with full purpose of amendment of life, being ready to make restitution for all injuries and wrongs done by you to others; and also being ready to forgive those who have offended you, in order that you yourselves may be forgiven. And then, being reconciled with one another, come to the banquet of that most heavenly Food.

And if, in your preparation, you need help and counsel, then go and open your grief to a discreet and understanding priest, and confess your sins, that you may receive the benefit of absolution, and spiritual counsel and advice; to the removal of scruple and doubt, the assurance of pardon, and the strengthening of your faith.

To Christ our Lord who loves us, and washed us in his own blood, and made us a kingdom of priests to serve his God and Father, to him be glory in the Church evermore. Through him let us offer continually the sacrifice of praise, which is our bounden duty and service, and, with faith in him, come boldly before the throne of grace.

The words I have just read to you come from your prayer book. They replace a set of three such exhortations from the previous book, the first of which was to be read on the first Sunday of Advent and of Lent, and on Trinity Sunday, and the other two to be read the Sunday prior to when communion was to be offered. In those days, before the eucharist was designated as “the principal act of Christian Worship on the Lord's Day and other major Feasts,” it was common that communion occurred perhaps monthly; but then, in Roman Catholic churches from medieval times until relatively recently, people commonly received only once or twice a year, though the mass was said every week.

In the middle ages, the people's part was to see the offering made, a theology rejected by the reformers; yet infrequent communion remained a feature of Protestant worship until the liturgical movements of the last century. I remember as a Presbyterian child attending communion only four times a year. But the reexamination of our rites which led up to the adoption of our current prayer book has overturned all that, so that weekly communion is the rule in most of our parishes. And thus, the typical Episcopalian, accustomed to a routine of Eucharists, week after week, likely finds this exhortation obscure, and its advice perhaps antique. Week after week, we come to church expecting to sing some hymns, hear some scripture and a sermon (hopefully brief), say the creed and some prayers, and then approach the altar for a fragment of bread and a sip of wine, with nary a qualm about the whole routine.

But perhaps we should be having qualms. The habit of weekly communion: this is commendable, as is any practice which cultivates prayer as part of life's pattern. But habit can become mechanical, and the weekly miracle can fall into the other kind of routine: ordinary, mechanical, lifeless. Paul writes that we who partake need to discern the body, or call down judgement upon ourselves. And surely Paul does not mean a literal vision here, for who among us can see divinity—or at that, who could withstand the vision? But equally surely, he must mean that our participation in the rite needs to go beyond simple consumption, and ought, within the bounds of your faculties, to be founded in an awareness of what it is that we do, with all the reverence and worship that this implies.

For consider this: for a moment, you will hold something of Jesus in your hand, and sip something of him from the cup. Christians over the years have argued exactly how this is so, and we Anglicans have refused to commit to a single theory of how this is so, which to my mind is a prudent reflection of the limits of theology as a product of human thought. I would venture to say that taking these theories too seriously may be condemned as fostering the factions and divisions which Paul condemned. But as a church we Anglicans have always held to the faith that Jesus is Really present: however spiritual, however material, however mystical, we do not hold communion to be only symbolic. Jesus is there, on the plate and in the cup, and Jesus is therefore in us, and we are united with him again as we are united in the church, which is also his body.

But even as these are truths, they are also images which can be made the objects of various sorts of idolatry. We can for example come to think of the altar rail as a sort of divine filling station in which we get our heavenly tanks topped off every week. And this much is true: we do need God every week, for we need God every minute of every day. But even to the degree that the Jesus is in the substance of communion, even to the degree that it feeds us, the analogy between His food and our daily bread tends to reduce the former to the latter, an ordinary transaction which we are wont to take for granted—especially the majority of us, whom I would wager never seriously want for nutrition.

Likewise, there is the risk of taking communion as a sort of religious insurance policy, so that we may go about the rest of our week indifferent to the gospel demands, secure (we think) in the armor with which our rites surround our souls. We sin, not in order that grace may abound, but simply because our routine includes a great deal of routine sinning, which we cannot be bothered to notice and or rein in. We know that we are good people, because we go to church and take Jesus into us each Sunday. Well, as you may recall, Jesus commended the Pharisees—barely—for their scrupulous observances; it was what went on in between that he condemned. We have improved upon this slightly, for we at least know that we hold the right moral and political and economic positions (as God appears to have taught us through the mouths of our secular leaders). But really, when examined seriously, our lives show contempt and hard-heartedness and lust and greed and every other sin on a daily basis. Yet we may be saved, but for the repentance which is not part of this routine.

It is this repentance which leads to a confession of sin have been made a part of the eucharistic liturgy. And the church, in her wisdom, has appointed that her priests may offer the grace of pardon not only corporately, but one-to-one. Indeed, in the larger church catholic, it has been the norm to insist that this be done in preparation for partaking. Anglicans have not made such a rule, but the rite has been commended, both in cases where a rite of personal contrition has seemed called for (as the exhortation suggests), and as a regular practice, seeing as how we sin as regularly. But at least we should approach the rail knowing and admitting our own failings, and also confident in the grace which washes sin away and makes us fit to stand before our God.

Therefore, I say this: if the words I read at the beginning sound antique, the instruction they give is ever current. We travellers through this modern century have not passed beyond their advice, but instead should heed these words all the more, in a world which teaches that God is neither there nor anywhere else, nor is sin of consequence nor of any reality at all. Tonight, and at each eucharist, I bid you take some time to pray before and after you approach the altar, and consider the implications of how you are fed with the substance of divine love, the holy food and drink of new and unending life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Once and for All

Preached for Proper 28, Year B. The lessons read were Daniel 12:1-3, Hebrews 10:11-25, and Mark 13:1-8.

“Such large stone, and such large buildings!” If you go to Jerusalem today, you can still see many of the stones, and they are indeed big: those at the Western Wall are about four feet high and six wide, and some are quite a lot bigger. Those stones were put there as part of Herod's project to enlarge the Temple Mount precinct, which began around 20 BC and continued almost up to the the destruction of the city in the year 70. Of course, the great buildings are gone, razed by Titus's legions. The timeframe of this leads to some curious conclusions: given that Jesus was probably born in 5 BC (the year before Herod's death), it would seem that his mother Mary was born about the time that the temple reconstruction commenced, and that Zachariah, John the Baptist's father, had already taken up his duties in the temple at the time.

The enlarged temple was not the only product of Herod's pride. On the southern side of the temple platform, he had a huge stoa built, where the Sanhedrin met and where the money changing we hear of was conducted. Josephus, the historian of the final Jewish revolt, acclaimed it as deserving “to be mentioned better than any other under the sun.” It also is utterly gone, burned in the revolts and eventually replaced by the Al-Aqsa Mosque hundreds of years later. The second temple itself, erected in the reign of Darius I, stood for five hundred years before Herod's work, and almost another century before its obliteration by the Romans. But it is all gone. If the the retaining walls remain, nothing that once stood upon them is left: not one stone is left here upon another; all were thrown down. In those days, the massive splendor of those walls, the golden stone shining in the middle eastern sun, surely seemed, if not eternal, certainly destined to stand for ages to come, but as Jesus foretold, they had less than forty years left.

The temple destroyed, the focus of Jewish worship shifted, perforce, to the synagogues. But these are houses of prayer, not places of sacrifice. Even in modern Jerusalem, there are no more sacrifices. And for us, the members of the church, the sacrifices we make are transformed. The priests made offerings for sin, so that the height of the sacrificial year was that made on Yom Kippur, when a bull, two rams, and two goats were sacrificed in atonement, both for the high priest's own sins and for those of the people. We make offerings for remembrance: the eucharistic sacrifice we do for the remembrance of he who is our salvation. So why the change? Well, the Jews do not sacrifice because there is no place for them to do so, for their temple is no more. But we are Christ's temple on earth, as Paul states over and over, we in our own bodies comprise the body of Christ and temple of our God, with Jesus simultaneously the head of this body and the foundation of this temple. And it is no longer a place where the blood of animals is shed in our place, for the blood of our savior which was shed on Calvary is enough for eternity. Jesus was and is the perfected sacrifice, the perfect God and perfect Humanity which atones once and for all. We are reunited with God through Christ, and so the curtain in the temple was torn at the culmination of the passion; and thus our sacrifices are of remembrance and thanksgiving, and not for our own atonement. “It is finished,” Jesus said on the cross; redemption is won, and is eternal.

Therefore, at the Eucharist, we proclaim the Mystery of Faith, and note well the tense of each verb: “Christ has died,” for his sacrifice for us is done, over, complete, a matter of history; “Christ is risen,” for the new life is now and redemption is present, not in some future, but here and now; “Christ will come again,” for the final union of heaven and earth and the death of the old is not yet accomplished, but we are promised it, and one day the harvest will be completed and the old life will end forever.

Of course the disciples wanted to know when this would be accomplished; who would not? And Jesus gave them an answer, which has turned out over the many centuries to be completely useless thus far. For he gave another answer, than no person would know the date—not even the Son of God Himself. Thus we have seen wars and famine and murder and violence and apostasy and plainly false religion, over and over, and yet, Jesus has not returned. Perhaps when the time comes, the signs will be more clear, but the point, after all, is the readiness. The day will come like a thief in the night, and shall we find ourselves fit to face our God?

For we will face him: that we are also promised. We will all be called to judgement, against which our only advocate, our only savior, will place his sacrifice, that we, in faith, may claim it and live. And so living, the new Jerusalem, we are told, will have no temple. We, the temple of the body of Christ, shall no longer need a place to represent the dwelling of God, for all that exists will be that dwelling, where sin and alienation and sorrow and loss will find no more a place to live.

So, my brothers and sisters, gathered together in this place, remember that one sacrifice, and have faith; you are saved. And remember that faith to others, that they too may come, and be baptized, and join in the temple of Jesus the Christ, through whose one sacrifice is all redemption.

Bread and Word

Preached for Proper 15, Year B. The lessons read were Proverbs 9:1-6, Ephesians 5:15-20, and John 6:51-58.

Jesus is talking about bread again this week, and, well, we had bread in the gospel last week, and the week before that, and the week before that, and it looks like we're going to have bread again next week. Why so much bread? The reason is this: at the end of July we started a series of readings from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, and there are seventeen mentions of bread in that chapter, beginning with the feeding of the five thousand and ending with the verse which ended this week's reading and which will appear again in next week's text.

This week Jesus is talking about communion, which is curious since the narrative of its institution in the last supper does not appear in John, but only in the three synoptic gospels, and in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. But the words are are plain: we must eat his flesh and drink his blood, and the bread he provides is that flesh, and those words are consonant with the institution narrative which we repeat, week after week: “this is my body” shall be said of the bread, “and this is my Blood of the New Covenant” of the wine, as Jesus said that holy night. Paul says that we do this to remember, but we understand from the words here that it it is not just a memorial, but that we are fed in the Eucharist, not materially, but spiritually.

Now bread in the gospels, it signifies feeding, all right, and more specifically feeding as something we need in order to live. In recounting the last days, there is not a single mention of bread: perhaps it may be part of the marriage supper of the Lamb, but that feast is about something other than base nourishment. Bread, in the gospels, is connected to hunger, and thus it is that the very first mention of bread in the bible comes not out of the mouth of Jesus, but from Satan: “command these stones to become loaves of bread.” And Jesus' reply is interesting in light of his words in this week's lesson, for he says to Satan, “it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” The passage he is quoting is from Deuteronomy, wherein Moses says, “He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” Jesus also refers to the manna, the bread which came down from heaven, the bread of angels as the psalmist says, but Jesus says that the new bread, his bread, is not like that old manna, which nourished the body, and yet, the Israelites grew old and died.

But in the end, we are promised, we shall not die. Oh, in the short run, in the passing of the years, we shall age or shall succumb to accident or violence or disease, but in the end, the end of days, we shall be raised: that is Jesus' promise. And while we work this earth, we are fed by him: his flesh and his blood. I do not think it profitable to choose from among the various theories about how the elements of communion can be said to be Jesus, but one thing is plain: in some sense, He is becoming part of us as we eat and drink, week by week. We, as the church, are the body of Christ, but we see in Jesus' words that this is not merely a way of talking about how we carry out His will, but also, in a way, a statement of literal truth.

And in this, I want to go back to another point which comes from Jesus' rejoinder to Satan. He says that man, that is, the people of God, is nourished by the divine word. One's first impulse here is to understand this as meaning the word of scripture, but we know also that Jesus is that Word as well; we have that in the first chapter of John. Thus we can say that truly are nourished by word and sacrament, for in a sense, they are the same thing: we of the new creation are fed, literally and spiritually, by what we partake, both in our eyes and ears, and in our mouths: Jesus, the bread of heaven, the word of God.

But enough of bread: I would like to turn from mere bread, to the feast of our first lesson. The proverbs do not appear often in the Sunday lessons, and each of the three times is an address by Holy Wisdom, calling all people to heed her. But in this case, the cry is a summons to a feast. There is bread here, but beyond that, meat and wine. This is not just to satisfy the hungry, but to feed richly and abundantly; not just to live, but to grow and be strong.

And thus, with wisdom, we are back to the Word. Wisdom in the Hebrew carries a different sense than it does in English, and the same with foolishness. The “simple” who are invited are to become wise not only in judgement but in plain learning; here it is the eyes and ears which are the conduits by which God enters in. But it is still the Word; it is still Jesus, and scripture again uses the idea of feeding to convey its effects upon us. We hear the word of scripture, and if I and other preachers and spiritual writers minister effectively in the Spirit, we and you are all instructed so as to be graced with the fruits of the Spirit. Therefore Paul, preaching to the Ephesians, counsels them, and us, to live wisely, that is, to heed scripture and to understand it, and to live it out—for it is in such a life that we have life, we the members, the limbs and organs of the body of Christ, working in the world. And we do so not just in repeating what we have been taught, but in every loving act me make in the world, for it is by that love that we show the Jesus in us: it is in that love that we show what we are made of: Jesus, the bread of the world, come down from heaven, the Son of God, whom with the Father and the Spirit we worship and adore with every feeding from his flesh and blood, the holy food and drink of new and unending life.

The End of the Great Sabbath

It was a great sabbath, perhaps the greatest sabbath since creation. Jesus lay dead in the tomb, tortured to death by a world which would not know him, and hastily buried before the day of rest. With him, an old world died, the old world beset by sin and faithlessness; the globe turned, oblivious, and Judaea rested, remembering the first Passover, unaware of the second.

The sacrifice of that first Passover marked the children of Abraham as God's own, written in blood upon the dwellings they were about to abandon, the residences of their former life of slavery; and then came the passage through the waters of the sea, in which their deliverance from Egypt was completed and their new life begun. We too have passed through water, the water of baptism, into our new life. And now, in the dark, we look to dawn of that great day. We wait for the LORD; our souls wait for him; in his word is our hope. Our souls wait for the LORD, more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.

And lo, he comes! The women expected nothing but a cold, sealed cave that morning; and frightening shock of the angel's appearance: we can only pretend to the same, for the astonishing news he brought them is not news to us. It is ancient, but it is not tired, or withered, or bygone. It is news that, taken in faith, is as powerful as when first spoken: the old life ended, and a new and everlasting life arisen in its place. The old world awoke, and noticed nothing; but those who heard the angel's word knew, then and now, that everything was changed. And then, just as the Hebrews came to Sinai to meet their God and receive His laws, the women were met by Jesus, to send the others to Galilee. The LORD on the mountain was awesome and frightening, whose glory was unbearable, even reflected in Moses's face, but the face of Jesus, God and Man together, was hope and joy to those women, and so should it be to us. Jesus does not walk among us now, but we do see him in the word of scripture, and in the church; in hope and faith, we shall all see him face to face on the last day, when all humanity is assembled before the throne.

But that awful day has yet to befall us, and if the news of the resurrection has circled the world, not all hear it, or hearing, dismiss it. And meanwhile, we who do hear find it difficult to live out the life of the new world, for we are still born out of the old, just as the Hebrews found it difficult to leave behind their old life in Egypt. The year that follows affords us many weeks to learn the way of the new life, the life assured us in the angel's proclamation, but for tonight, it is enough that we remember the news, and proclaim it again:

Christ has died!
Christ is risen!
Christ will come again!

The Blessings of Our Peculiar God

We are blessed with a peculiar God.

We use the word “peculiar” to mean two things: that something is strange or odd, or that something belongs to or is characteristic of some particular thing. It could be said that our God is both, from our earthly perspective.

But it's not for our lack of trying to see Him otherwise. Thomas Aquinas, in the middle ages, attempted various proofs of God's existence, and while there is a certain pleasing symmetry in his arguments from natural law on the one hand and philosophical superlatives on the other, the end point, as it were, of these formulas is the three circles of the trinity as spoken of by Dante in the last lines of the Divine Comedy: a mathematical but unilluminating perfection. And what if there is a god? It is as Robert Farrar Capon once wrote in his introduction to systematic theology:

The important question is not “does God exist?” but “what is he like?” Is he nasty or nice? Does he wear overpowering aftershave? Does he force Chinese food on all his friends?

I cannot offer an opinion on the question of aftershave, but I am reasonably certain about the Chinese food, and I am utterly confident that He is nice— or rather, not nice, but good, loving beyond our powers of comprehension. And why? Well, because this is what scripture testifies.

And why scripture? Because it is only the revelation of God which truly brings us to know Him, and it is in scripture, that sacred history, that he shows Himself in the world. So, let us move half a century after Aquinas in the 13th century, to the philosophers of the Enlightenment in the 18th. In their faith in human reason, they took the superlative, perfectly spherical God of medieval theology and did it one better, and so we got the irrelevant God of deism, who can be counted on never to insert Himself into the world and disturb it; they took the bible and edited the miracles from it and reduced it to a source of moral tales which they did not in any case read—unless they already agreed with them.

What was their problem with those scriptural tales? Well, it's what they tell of what God is like: for all the philosophical perfections we attribute to God, the story scripture tells of his action in the world is so, well, skewed. The story it tells of God is that He chooses to work through particular people, and he does not reward heroes: he makes them out of the unlikely. Thus he picks Abram, and Joseph, and Moses, and David, and the many prophets; and while they in faith prove God's choice, it is clear in every case that it is not through their own merit that they have grace thrust upon them. Abram's only qualification appears to be negative: that he is childless. Moses is set apart at birth and is reduced to watching his father-in-law's herds in the wilderness when God calls to him. Joseph and David are boys, the tail ends of their families.

And now, today, the angel Gabriel from heaven comes to speak the word to Mary, who, of all women, is chosen to bear the Word of God incarnate. What is special about Mary? Luke and Matthew say only that she was virgin, as Abram's wife Sarai and Zachariah's wife Elizabeth were barren, so that the life-giving power of God might be fully shown in these children of the promise: Isaac, John, and last and finally, Jesus. And these promises are another characteristic of our God. The irresistible grace laid upon them by the Spirit is in every case accompanied by promises: to Abraham, to be the founder of a nation; to Joseph and Moses, to save the Hebrew people in Egypt; to David, to complete the founding of the nation; to Zachariah, the salvation of his people; and finally, to Mary, to bear the Messiah, the Son of the Most High.

Thus Mary, as with her forerunners, was a hearer of the Word, and also its bearer. And she is also its speaker: in her visit to Elizabeth, she prophesies the words we sang in place of the psalm today, praising God for his blessing, acknowledging his mercies, and foretelling the kingdom. Is there something special about her? Well, yes, of course: only one woman is the Godbearer, the Theotokos as the Greeks call her. “Blessed are you among women”: that was Elizabeth's greeting. And yet, in a way we are all made special as she is, for in this hall we are all God-hearers, and through baptism we are all made incorporate in Christ's body which is the church, even this child which is brought before us today. And in each communion we partake of that holy body and blood, so that God is in us in the most literal way, made part of our very matter, as Jesus's humanity was taken from his mother.

It is all so very unreasonable. Why should a bit of bread and a sip of wine put God in us? Why should a splash of water bind us to Christ? Rational humanity scoffs. Why should God be manifested in three men at Mamre, or a burning bush? Who can believe that elderly women or virgins can bear children? Rational, scientific mankind knows better, because it does not know God. We say, piously and superlatively, that God is beyond human comprehension, but it is so very hard to take this seriously. Humans want explanations, and if they are not forthcoming from God, then, well, our theologians can supply them if we do not, and eventually we explain God away entirely. Rationalism demands a God who can be examined at humanity's whim and leisure, but that is not what God is like. God is uncooperative and does not submit to such probing; God speaks, and it is for us to hear—to hear, and to repeat. At the end of Luke's narrative of Jesus's birth and childhood, he says that Mary “treasured all these things in her heart,” and it can be guessed that she is the ultimate source of the scriptural account we have. God reveals himself in the word, but it is we, his people, who must carry it forward. We must, like Mary, like men and women of faith through the ages, be speakers of the word, for how else will the grain of faith be scattered, that the angels may harvest at the end of days?

Our peculiar God has, in his inscrutable wisdom, entrusted his church with speaking his word, a strategy which one theologian described as appearing to be an act of supreme folly. But that is the God that is, and thus we have it that salvation is not something one can find, but something that one is given, given right here, through word and sacrament, but first of all through the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus, the son of Mary and son of God, the Messiah born of the line of David, as promised of old—for although the prophecy made to Nathan foretold the glory of Solomon, it also spoke, out of time, of the greater son of David, who is Jesus. Tonight we remember his first advent, singing with the shepherds; and through grace, we wait in hope for his second advent, when the Father's purpose is brought to its close, and we are united with him in the life which has no end, in his everlasting glory, the Father who with the Son and the Spirit lives and reigns unto ages of ages. AMEN.