Author: Adam Thomas

Behold How Good

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment

Sermon for Sunday, April 12, 2015 || Easter 2B; Psalm 133

BeholdHowGoodEcce Quam Bonum! I first heard these three Latin words in the fall of the year 2000 when I was a senior in high school. I stepped out of the car and stared in awe at the soaring Gothic architecture of the buildings arranged around the quad of a little college tucked away in the mountains of Tennessee. Ecce Quam Bonum! As a prospective student, those words were words of welcome to me: “Behold how good!” they proclaimed. These are the opening words of our psalm today, Psalm 133: “Behold, how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity!” Walking towards the beautiful sandstone chapel on that visit, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to experience living together in unity at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennesee. The next fall I matriculated, and the four years I spent at Sewanee were years of friendship, formation, discernment of call, and lots and lots of singing.

Even though I didn’t know how to sing at the time, I still loved to do it, so I joined the University Choir my first month of college. That choir became my family for four years. The intensity of being in the choir at Sewanee matched that of playing a varsity sport. We did everything together. Several times a week, I got to sing with that special community. It was a gift to be able to add my voice to that group. The fellowship of the choir at Sewanee made real for me those three Latin words: Ecce Quam Bonum, Behold how good!

The words of Psalm 133, which we sang a few minutes ago speak of the desire for joyful, harmonious fellowship with our brothers and sisters. Three other readings join this psalm, and each speaks about community and fellowship. In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke paints a happily-ever-after picture of the apostles and their companions, in which the “whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul” (4:32). In the First Letter of John, the writer says, “We declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1:3). In the Gospel, the Risen Christ appears to the disciples as a group, grants them peace, and breathes the Holy Spirit upon them. Thomas is not with the disciples at the time, so as a group they seek him out and tell him the good news. A week later, when Thomas has returned to their fellowship, Jesus once again appears, and Thomas believes.

In just a few minutes we are baptizing two eight-month-old babies (two wonderful, beautiful babies, if I say so myself), and I can’t think of better lessons to accompany such a joyous occasion. The sacrament of Baptism celebrates the inward movement of God in a person’s life by outwardly welcoming that person into God’s family the Church. We baptize infants because we believe God is moving in all people, regardless of their ability to recognize or verbalize such movement. We baptize infants so that their earliest memories will be ones of being loved and cherished by a community of faith.

The “outward sign of inward grace” definition of a sacrament is tried and true, but it is also well worn, so let’s expand our understanding of what’s going on in baptism with a less academic and more musical metaphor.

The music of God plays in each one of our hearts. You’ve heard the expression, “tugging on my heartstrings” to describe something that evokes compassion and sympathy. Well, God tuned those heartstrings to resonate with God’s music; that is, God’s desires, yearnings, hopes, and dreams for God’s creation. That’s why we feel a tug on our hearts when we see someone in need – because God is directing us to notice and help that person.

Within our hearts, sometimes the music of God is soft, a half-whispered lullaby, barely discernible over the din of the world. Sometimes the notes crescendo to a deafening fortissimo that knocks us, weeping, to our knees. Most often, the music sounds as the percussive TUB-thp of our hearts — a rhythm that, if you listen closely, beats in time with the rest of the performing forces of creation. I’m not a theoretical physicist, but what I’m describing might be considered a poetic version of some of the more modern theories of how the universe works – it’s all about vibration, right? That’s really all music is – collections of well-defined vibrations. We identify the source of that vibration – that resonance – as God.

Each one of us has the music of God resounding within, but the choir is incomplete until we have found each other, until we have joined together in fellowship as the chorus of God, so to speak. In Greek, this fellowship is called koinonia, but I’ve always thought that “fellowship” is a rather limp translation. For the sake of our metaphor, let’s translate koinonia as “harmony,” which lands much closer to the descriptive intent of the Greek word. Musical harmony is the collection of notes that add structure, color, tone, depth, and meaning to the main tune. This tune, called the “melody” is the music of God within us. The combination of our own unique passions and hardships; our successes and failures; our gifts and shortcomings; our hopes, our dreams, and our joys creates the harmony of the music of God.

In the sacrament of Holy Baptism, we welcome another soprano, alto, tenor, or bass into the choir. We await eagerly the subtle changes in timbre that these new lives will bring. Together, we sing the koinonia, the harmony, of the music of God to a world so accustomed only to noise and clatter. The sound of our anthems resonate with the movement of God in this world. This is the sacrament of Holy Baptism: new sound, new harmony, new resonance in the chorus of the music of God.

One of my favorite songs is called “One Voice,” by the band The Wailin’ Jennys. With each verse, another voice is added to the mix. By the third verse, each member of the band is weaving her voice with the other two. They sing:

This is the sound of voices three
Singing together in harmony
Surrendering to the mystery
This is the sound of voices three
 
This is the sound of all of us
Singing with love and the will to trust
Leave the rest behind it will turn to dust
This is the sound of all of us

So Ecce Quam Bonum! Behold how good it is when we all sing together in harmony and surrender to the mystery of God’s movement in our lives. Behold how good it is when we welcome new life into God’s family and embrace the new life the resurrection brings. Behold how good it is when we invite others to join us as we add our harmonies to the melody of the music of God.

Whom are You Looking For?

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment

Sermon for Sunday, April 5, 2015 || Easter Sunday, Year B; John 20:1-18


2015easterdayGood morning, and welcome to St. Mark’s on this glorious Easter Sunday. This morning we walk with Mary Magdalene to the tomb and find it empty. And yet our emptiness doesn’t last for long because Jesus, the Risen Christ, stands there, shining before us, as the dew glistens on the early spring flowers blossoming in the garden.

But before we get to this beautiful encounter, I want to talk to you for a moment about my favorite comic strip. Calvin and Hobbes and I grew up together. Bill Watterson’s impeccable creation began its run about two months before my third birthday and ended just before I turned thirteen. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I told you I learned to read so I could consume Watterson’s genius. What attracted me to Calvin and Hobbes turns out to be the same element that makes our Christian faith so beautiful. The comic strip is all about the adventures of a young boy and his stuffed tiger. Yet while Calvin’s parents see only a stuffed tiger when they look at Hobbes, Calvin sees a living, breathing beast who might hug him or pounce on him depending on the tiger’s mood. For Calvin’s parents, the stuffed tiger is a “what.” It’s just another thing, a toy. But for Calvin, Hobbes is so much more than a “what.” Hobbes is a “who.”

In the same way, our Christian faith is based not on a “what,” but on a “who.” Yes, we have doctrine and catechism and creed, but none of those trappings matter if we forget the answer to the “who” question that undergirds them all. In the garden this morning, the Risen Christ asks Mary Magdalene this “who” question. Whom are you looking for? At first, Mary answers with a “what” response. She’s wondering what has happened to the body of her Lord. But when Jesus says her name, she recognizes him for who he is – he’s still Jesus, and yet he’s more somehow, as if the power of the resurrection made him a truer version of himself. I imagine Mary launching herself into his arms and their embrace lingering because she thought she had lost him – she had lost him – and yet here he is. You can try embracing a “what,” but only a “who” will embrace you back. The Risen Christ is the answer to this “who” question our faith asks.

Throughout the last two chapters of the Gospel according to John, Jesus appears to his friends five times. In each encounter, something could keep the disciples from recognizing the Risen Christ in their midst, but his presence dispels those barriers. The same barriers often stand in our way and keep us from embracing the Risen Christ in our midst. These barriers trick us into seeing just a stuffed tiger, so to speak, when Hobbes is standing there grinning with a pile of snowballs at the ready. I’d hazard to guess we’ve all known each of these barriers. But today, on this feast of the Resurrection, Jesus gives us the opportunity to answer his question anew and dispel those barriers once again. So whom are you looking for?

The second half of our Gospel reading this morning begins with tears. “But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.” Her sorrow could be a barrier keeping her from seeing the Risen Christ. Indeed, when she sees him, she thinks he’s the gardener. She even accuses him of stealing her Lord’s body. She’s hurting, and not even a vision of angels staunches her pain. In moments of sorrow, the Risen Christ asks us: “Whom are you looking for?” Responding with his name won’t necessarily make the sorrow go away. But it will help us notice his presence in our midst, suffering with us, and offering us strong arms to carry our burdens when they become too heavy to bear alone.

Later that evening, “The doors of the house where the disciples had met where locked for fear of the Jews.” The disciples have hidden themselves away because they’re afraid they will be next for the cross. The fear is so palpable that it hangs in the room like fog, silencing all attempts at conversation and isolating each man with his own dark thoughts. But a locked door and fog of fear cannot stop the Risen Christ from appearing in their midst. He dispels their terror with a word of peace. In moments of fear, the Risen Christ asks us: “Whom are you looking for?” As we breathe out his name, we breathe in this same peace, the peace that passes all understanding.

The next week, Thomas is with them. He wasn’t in the house the last time, so he still hasn’t seen the Risen Christ. “I need to see him and touch to know you are telling the truth,” he says to his friends. His doubt is understandable. How could he possibly believe a story so incredible without some shred of proof? And yet when the Risen Christ stands before him, he falls to his knees and utters the most resounding declaration of faith in the whole Gospel: “My Lord and my God!” And all without ever touching Jesus. In moments of doubt, the Risen Christ asks us: “Whom are you looking for?” And in those moments, even the smallest, most doubtful voice we can muster is enough when we say, “You, Lord.”

Some time later, seven of Jesus’ friends are out on the Sea of Tiberias fishing. Or should I say trying to fish. They’re out all night and they catch nothing. You can imagine their frustration mounting as the morning sun gilds the clouds. But then someone on the beach beckons to them and tells them to cast the net one more time. And the bulging net is so full they can’t haul it in. In moments of frustration, the Risen Christ asks us: “Whom are you looking for?” Saying his name helps us reorient ourselves to what matters and let go of our frustration long enough to try again, this time with Jesus’ posture of abundance replacing our frustrating and shriveled posture of scarcity.

Once on the beach, with the fish grilling away on a charcoal fire, the Risen Christ takes Simon Peter aside. He knows Peter feels ashamed for the way he acted on that terrifying night when Jesus was arrested. Three times Peter denied knowing Jesus. So three times Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” With each affirmation – “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you” – Jesus replaces Peter’s shame with a new sense of worth. And with this new sense of worth comes a mission: “Feed my sheep.” In moments of shame, the Risen Christ asks us: “Whom are you looking for?” Shame has a way of making us feel unworthy to say his name. And so he asks again and again until we know that his concern for us makes us worthy to respond: “I’m looking for you, Lord.” And for him to say, “Well, you found me, and no amount of shame will ever make you unworthy of my love.”

Sorrow. Fear. Doubt. Frustration. Shame. These are just a few of the barriers that can keep us from being aware of the Risen Christ in our midst. But in each case, Jesus does not let those barriers keep him from coming near, embracing us, and never letting us go. Never letting anyone go. This is the power of the Resurrection: the barrier is temporary, but the embrace is eternal. The “who” at the center of our faith outlives and outshines all of the “what” that we clutter our lives with. So when you leave this church today, go out into the world with Jesus’ question to Mary on your lips: “Whom are you looking for?” Today, tomorrow, every day, and on into eternity, make this your answer: “You, Lord. I’m looking for you.” And here the Risen Christ say to your soul, “You found me. And you have been found.”

—

Art: Detail from “Mary Magdalene in Meditation” by Le Nain Brothers

The Waters of Baptism

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Sermon for the Easter Vigil, Saturday, April 4, 2015


2015eastervigilIt’s great to have a baptism scheduled for the Easter Vigil, but we didn’t this year at St. Mark’s. I still wanted to bless the water of baptism before we renewed our baptismal covenant, so my father suggested I build the blessing into my sermon. At the vigil, you can preach before or after the transition from darkness to light, and this year I chose before.

Tonight, we began with fire. We kindled a new flame and processed the Light of Christ into the church. We gave “this marvelous and holy flame” to God during the chanting of the Exsultet, saying: “Holy Father, accept our evening sacrifice, the offering of this candle in your honor. May it shine continually to drive away all darkness. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning––he who gives his light to all creation.”

Then we heard the first words ever spoken in that creation; indeed, the Word spoken to call creation forth: “Let there be light!” Creation erupted from this Word and God flung wide the fiery fusion of the stars and billions of years later, here we sit. (I skipped a little bit of the story there.) Our worship this night returns to such primal origins to make sure we know the infinite and eternal reach of the event we are about to celebrate. As I said, tonight, we began with fire.

And now we move from one primal element to another – from fire to water.

(I pour the water into the baptismal font.)

“We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water. Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of creation.” (These are the first words of our baptismal rite’s blessing of the water. The rest are contained throughout this sermon.) The fiery fusion of the stars is there a moment after the beginning, a moment after the blazing creativity of the Holy Spirit dances over the face of the deep. When we give thanks to God for the gift of water, we show our gratitude for one of the fundamental things that makes life possible. We might not normally thank God for water, especially where we live and in this day and age, because water is so plentiful and constant. But tonight we acknowledge the gift of this building block of life, which helps us focus on those things that sustain life.

“Through [water] you led the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the land of promise.” We heard this story a few minutes ago, too. Moses, Aaron, Miriam, and all the people of Israel stand at the edge of the sea with their enemies bearing down on them. The sea could be a barrier, but God causes it to be their protector and rearguard. They arrive on the other side, but the sea swallows up the Egyptians and all their trappings of war. As the water delivered the people from slavery in a foreign land, for us the water symbolizes freedom from all that enslaves us.

“In [water] your Son Jesus received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us, through his death and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.” Jesus’ baptism began his public ministry of healing and bringing people closer to God. You might wonder why Jesus himself was baptized since John’s baptism was a path to repentance. What would Jesus need to repent if he knew no sin? With his baptism, Jesus foreshadows his death on the cross. He did not need to be baptized, not for the reasons the others coming out to the Jordan River did. But he chose baptism in order to wash in the same muddy water and to be in solidarity with his people. In the same way, he chose the cross, not because of his own guilt, but because of ours. In the river, Jesus swims in the sin of the people. And on the cross, the same sin hangs there with him.

“We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism.” We show our gratitude again, this time for specific water, the special water of Baptism. This water is like any other, except that we set it apart with prayer and blessing and ask the Holy Spirit to make it holy.

“In [the water of Baptism] we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” We borrow these words from the Apostle Paul, who wrote the church in Rome: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4). A baptism is so much more than a ritual washing away of sin, says Paul. Indeed, in baptism we recognize that we have died and risen with Christ. Paul continues, just to make sure we understand his point: “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5).

“Therefore in joyful obedience to your Son, we bring into his fellowship those who come to him in faith, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” How could we not invite others into Christ’s fellowship after we have known the supreme gift of the Risen Christ being alive in us? But just in case we think that this new life is too precious to share, but must be hoarded like other precious things, Jesus himself commanded us to “Go… and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).

“Now sanctify this water, we pray you, by the power of your Holy Spirit, that those who here are cleansed from sin and born again may continue for ever in the risen life of Jesus Christ our Savior.” We ask the Holy Spirit to infuse this ordinary water with the presence of God just like we will do later with ordinary bread and wine. We set the rite of baptism at this point in our service because it serves as the perfect hinge between death in the gloom of Friday and new life at dawn on Sunday. When you feel this water touch your skin in a few minutes after we renew our baptismal covenant, remember that you have died and risen with Christ. You belong not to the old things that are passing away. You belong to the new creation.

“To [Christ], to you (Lord), and to the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.”

—

Art: Detail from “Creation of the World” by Ivan Aivazovsky, 1864

The New Version of Me

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A Good Friday Meditation; John 19:31-42


2015goodfriImagine with me the thoughts of the Pharisee Nicodemus on his way home from helping Joseph of Arimathea bury the body of Jesus. Nicodemus appears at the end of the Passion Gospel reading, as well as two other places in the Gospel according to John, both of which are referenced in what follows.

Two years ago, I knocked on a door. I waited until nighttime and wrapped myself in a traveling cloak with a deep hood so no one would recognize me. Was I afraid to be seen with Jesus, who my colleagues branded as a dangerous radical? Yes, but fear was not the main reason for my caution. I was ashamed. I was ashamed to admit that I didn’t have all the answers, ashamed that someone else’s words could make me feel so infantile, like a newborn baby. So I hid myself in darkness, not to protect against prying eyes, but to conceal me from myself. I hid from myself. I hid from the version of me that Jesus was beckoning to emerge from some long forgotten exile.

I used to relish my position on the council, my authority as an arbiter. I took pleasure in the blank looks of acceptance on the faces of my litigants. They invested me with the power to judge, and I failed to notice when that power mutated into self-assured complacency. Predictability became my idol. There was never a new problem to be solved, never something I couldn’t explain or interpret or analyze. Over the years, I forgot how to ask questions because I was always the person with the answers.

Until that night. Until my vestigial curiosity awoke that night. When I first opened my mouth, my council voice came out, and I made a grand statement about knowing who comes from God. I could tell immediately that Jesus was not one to be cowed by my position or impressed by my stature. “I tell you the truth,” he said, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

I didn’t know what to say. I remember opening and closing my mouth several times. I remember Jesus smiling at me – patient, eager. Then my breath forced an “H” sound from my throat, and I was surprised when the word “how” came to my lips. I was asking a question. “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” The floodgates opened, and for the rest of the conversation, all I did was ask questions: “Can one enter into the mother’s womb a second time and be born? How can these things be?”

Ever since that night, I have heard his words carried on the wind. Since the wind blows where it chooses, my idolatrous reliance on predictability has vanished. Since I don’t know where the wind comes from or where it goes, my fantasy that I have all the answers has disappeared, as well. On my way to see Jesus, I was hiding from a new version of me. But everyday, I felt Jesus’ words drawing that new version out of me.

…

Last year, I reminded my colleagues to obey their own rules. No one on the council had discovered my secret meeting with Jesus, so my position was safe. The two versions of me occupied the same body, and, at that time, the familiar one dominated still. But I had begun to question and look past the veneer of institutional banality.

Jesus had shown up at the festival of booths and caused quite a stir. The chief priests had sent the temple police to arrest him, but they came back empty handed saying: “Never has anyone spoken like this!” I suppressed a smile. He escaped again. The rest of the Pharisees were outraged. One of them shouted: “Surely you have not been deceived, too, have you? Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him?”

A small voice inside me murmured: “I do.” Then a louder voice: “Careful. Careful.” When I spoke, I tried to defend Jesus without giving myself away. “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” But they were implacable. That’s when I noticed something I would never have seen had Jesus not awakened my curiosity. These colleagues of mine, the keepers of tradition, the self-proclaimed protectors of the Law, were breaking their own rules. I could no longer be party to such bankrupt ideals and blind action. That day, the small voice grew louder, the voice attached to the new version of me.

…

Today, I buried my Lord. Two years ago, I went to see him at night to cloak my own shame. But today, the sun shines down, unaware that its brightness mocks the darkness in my soul. The sun shines down, and I walk out under its beams so the world can see where my allegiance lies. When first we met, Jesus said to me, “Those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” It took two years, but here I am. Here I am in the light.

See, all you who pass by: I am one of his. I am not the person you knew. I am a new version of me, the version Jesus called out of me. See, all you who pass by: I am not ashamed any more. I feel the wind on my face, and I know his words are true. See, all you who pass by: is there any sorrow like my sorrow. My Lord is dead. It took his death for the old version of me to die. But will my new version survive with him gone? Will I have another chance to walk in the light? Has the darkness won? When will the light return?

—

Updated from a piece I wrote for Good Friday, 2009.
Art: Detail from The Descent from the Cross by Rembrandt, 1634

He Loved Them to the End

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Sermon for Maundy Thursday, April 2, 2015 || John 13:1-17, 31b-35

2015maundythurs“Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” Thus begins the second half of the Gospel according to John. We’ve walked with Jesus for three years since he called his first disciples, since he miraculously turned water into wine, since he drove the businesspeople out of the temple. We’ve overheard his conversations with the Pharisee Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman at the well. We’ve seen him heal a man suffering from paralysis and a man born blind. We’ve eaten the bread broken to feed 5,000 people. We’ve listened to Jesus call himself all sorts of names: the bread of life, the light of the world, the good shepherd. Recently, in an act that probably sealed his fate with his enemies, he raised his friend Lazarus from the dead.

That’s what happens in the first half of the Gospel. In the second half, we sit down with Jesus at dinner as he washes his disciples feet and talks with them late into the night. We follow him as he is arrested, tried, convicted, and crucified. And with Mary Magdalene and Thomas and the rest of the disciples, we see him risen again.

In between the two halves of the Gospel according to John, we have these two verses serving as a hinge. “Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

He loved them to the end. This is one of my favorite verses in the Gospel because it is deliciously ambiguous. The ambiguity raises this question: What end does he love us to? The obvious answer is his own death: the end about to be narrated, the end that happens at Golgotha. But this “end” is an unsatisfactory choice because we who live on the other side of Easter know that the cross was emphatically not the end.

So what other “end” is there? There’s our own, individual ends. Surely, he loves us to that point. But this too is an unsatisfactory answer, because our own earthly deaths are not the end either. They are a gateway to the larger and fuller life of consummation in God. The most famous hymn ever written reminds us there’s no end to that life, ever. “When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first begun.”

Then there’s the end of the planet we live on. That will happen at some point, whether we humans cause it or the star we call the sun loses its light. But even then, we believe the words St. Paul shares with the church in Rome: “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That’s pretty definitive, if you ask me.

Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. I honestly can’t think of an “end” final enough for the love of Jesus Christ to move from the present tense to the past tense. That’s what this week we begin tonight is about. Each day there is another end. Jesus is arrested and everyone flees. That sounds like an end. Jesus is convicted to die. Another ending. Jesus dies on the cross. The story is over. The stone rolls shut on the tomb. The End.

And yet none of these is the end. There is no end where the love of Christ is concerned. The love of Christ is bigger than the end. In the first half of the Gospel, this love heals the broken and raises the dead. This love opens the minds and hearts of those who hear Jesus speak. This love perseveres through the invective of his enemies. And now this love brings him to his knees with a basin and towel to serve his friends. This love expands out from Jesus as he gives his followers a new commandment: to love each other as he loves them. As he loves you. Me. Us.

In another letter, Paul speaks about love. And among those well-trod words, three of them ring out: “Love never ends.” So whether you are at the end of life or simply at the end of your rope, know this. Jesus loves you to the end. And because there is no final end, no end of ends, we can in all faith shorten that sentence to this: Jesus loves you. Always has. Always will. Because there is no end to his love.

—

Art: Detail from Christ Washing the Feet of the Disciples by Tintoretto (late Ren.)

Two Horrible Words

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Sermon for March 29, 2015 || The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday Year B || Mark 14:32 – 15:47

twohorriblewordsUsually the sermon follows the reading of the Gospel, but on this particular day – The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday – I prefer to preach first in order to help us orient ourselves towards the lengthy and powerful story we are about to hear. And because I think anything I would add after reading the Passion Gospel would serve only to lessen its impact. Also, this sermon will be unusually short since today’s service has a lot of extra parts, and so I’m going to limit myself to talking about two words. Only two words out of the 1,837 that make up today’s Passion Gospel. Those two words are: “Crucify him.” Those are your words. Three of us will be standing up here reading the rest of the characters, but you have a part to play, as well. Yours is the part of the crowd. Your part has one line, spoke twice. “Crucify him.”

I know many people who are so uncomfortable about saying this that they decline to join in, and I respect that. But I also think it invites further examination. When we shout, “Crucify him,” we place ourselves amongst Jesus’ opponents. We are given this opportunity – within the context of the liturgy – to join the crowd clamoring for Jesus’ death. This serves two purposes.

First, it serves as a corrective measure against the millennia old fallacy that “the Jews killed Jesus.” This mistaken outlook has led to ferocious atrocities perpetuated against Jews by Christians over the course of history, and it is unconscionable. That this malicious viewpoint still exists today among some Christians shows the worst side our religion is capable of. The Jews only killed Jesus in so far as everyone in the story besides Pilate and his soldiers is Jewish – including Jesus. Jesus was not the first Christian, and it was a couple generations before Jewish followers of Jesus stopped identifying themselves as Jewish. By putting ourselves in the group that shouts, “Crucify him,” we acknowledge that we, too, are part of the legacy of those people swept up in the bloodlust of the chief instigators of Jesus’ arrest. And by standing in that group, we liturgically atone for the sins of past Christians who persecuted Jewish people for “killing Jesus.”

The second purpose is this: by shouting, “Crucify him,” we give voice – if only for a moment – to the worst pieces of ourselves that want to have nothing to do with Jesus. If they wanted something to do with him, they wouldn’t be our worst pieces. Each of us has within us – hidden or not so hidden – these worst pieces. Pride. Envy. Hypocrisy. The desire to dominate. Separate. Isolate. And our fate hangs on our ability to recognize these shadowy pieces. To acknowledge them. To allow voice to the worst of what makes us, us. And once we’ve acknowledged them, we can confront them. Jesus is on his way to the cross, where he confronts the worst of the worst of the human condition. When we shout those two painful, horrible words – “Crucify him!” – the worst of the worst bubbles to the surface. And once on the surface, we can skim it off, like a layer of fat from a broth. With the fat skimmed off, we give it to Jesus. Jesus takes it to the cross. And there it is nailed with him. And there it dies with him.

I hope you will speak those two words today, despite how painful they are to voice aloud. Saying, “Crucify him,” is another way we make our confession. It is another way we acknowledge that sometimes we stand on the wrong side. And it is another way for us to realize the depths of love Christ has for us. Even though we ignore him and deny him and abandon him and crucify him, he does not stop loving us back into right relationship with God. He does not stop sweeping away the worst of our pieces and reconstructing us only using the good parts. So today, when you say those two painful words, “Crucify him,” remember that you have already been forgiven. And remember that next week, you’ll have the opportunity to replace these two ugly, horrible words with shouts of joy.

Humble Access

Published on by Adam Thomas2 Comments

Sermon for Sunday, March 22, 2015 || Lent 5B || Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-13

HumbleAccessThis is the last Sunday of the year in which we are worshiping according to the older, Rite I format of our liturgy. A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the reason we’ve been using the more traditional language was so we could say that beautiful line about inclining our hearts towards God. But there’s another reason, one that I didn’t mention then because I was fairly sure I was going to preach about it today. There’s a special prayer found in the traditional rite that is not duplicated in the modern one, a prayer we’ve been praying directly before communion for the last several weeks. Today, we will pray it one last time. The “Prayer of Humble Access” goes like this:

“We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.”

Before we dive deep on this prayer, let me tell you why I’ve been wanting to preach about it. For the longest time, I detested this prayer. I never wanted to attend a Rite I service because I did not want to say this prayer. I had my reasons: it felt too much like gratuitous self-flagellation; like I was groveling; like I had forgotten to put on my hair-shirt. It didn’t seem to mesh with the joyfulness of receiving Holy Communion. But, to be honest, those reasons were a smokescreen.

The real problem I had with this prayer was that my Pride* would not countenance me saying these words. The sin of Pride is the sin of forgetting who made you; the sin of reconstructing your life so that all of the good things that happen to you happen because of you. My Pride made me trust in my own presumed righteousness. My Pride generated a false sense of worthiness to sit at the Table. And so I never could get to the part of the prayer where we stop talking about ourselves and start talking about God. I’d be willing to bet, for one reason of another, that some of you have had similar issues with this or other prayers we say in the Episcopal Church.

Somewhere along the way, thanks in large part to my mentor and former rector Margot Critchfield, God engendered a change in me, so that, instead of embracing my Pride, I started to fight it. I still lose a lot of the time, but the Prayer of Humble Access has turned from a stumbling block into a reliable source of defense against my Pride.

So let’s take a look at what we are actually praying when we say this venerable old prayer, the words of which go all the way back to the first Book of Common Prayer of 1549.† What we will find are words that put us in right relationship with God and teach us about the mystery of this Holy Communion we share.

“We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord…” The first thing to notice is the owner of the table behind me. The altar does not belong to St. Mark’s Parish. It does not belong to the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. It does not belong to you or me. The table is God’s Table. Whether this is your first Sunday with us or you’ve been worshiping here forty years, you are still God’s guest when you come forward to receive Holy Communion. Therefore, when we do come forward, we are practicing our acceptance of God’s invitation again and again. This is one of God’s more obvious invitations, so accepting it each week helps train us to accept the less obvious invitations God sends us when we aren’t surrounding God’s Table.

“We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.” These words answer the question: “Where do we put our trust?” My old prideful answer told me to trust in my own righteousness, but the prayer places our trust in much more secure hands – in God’s “manifold and great mercies.” So what we’re really saying with this first sentence of the prayer is that we cannot hear God’s invitation to the Table until we relocate the object of our trust away from ourselves. The invitation has nothing to do with how good or righteous we are. We come to the Table because God’s mercy draws us there.

This is good news, especially when we are mired in the darkness like the writer of today’s psalm. The poet cries out, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness; in your great compassion blot out my offenses. Wash me through and through from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin.” Even in the midst of the deepest darkness, God’s mercy and compassion can draw us back home. In Hebrew, the word translated here as “compassion” has the same root as the word “womb.”‡ Thus, God’s compassion can bring us back to a moment of glorious togetherness like when a mother feels when her baby kicks. We find this togetherness, this connection, when God’s mercy draws us to the Table for our sacred meal.

“We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table.” This is the sentence that always made me cringe so much in my Pride. But the next sentence turns the camera around: “But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy.” So what these words lay bare is not our unworthiness, but God’s great generosity in having us as guests at God’s Table. This is the same generosity God extends to the people of Israel through the voice of Jeremiah the Prophet in today’s reading. The people have strayed again and again and again, and still God calls them back, makes a new covenant with them, and writes God’s law on their hearts. Like those ancient people, we are unworthy, except that God’s grace makes us worthy to receive God’s gifts.

And what is the greatest of gifts? The last words reveal all: “Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us.” We reach the crux of the prayer, the part my Pride never let me reach in days past. And just look what that Pride barred me from asking for! With these words, we reveal our deepest longing for a mutual indwelling with Christ. Dwelling in him means touching the peace that passes all understanding. And to have him dwell in us means feeling our hearts resonate with the yearnings of his heart, the yearnings that lead us to love and serve and sacrifice and rejoice.

In the end, this beautiful prayer that we will pray later in this service speaks to our longing for the deeper connection with God that Holy Communion offers. So today, when you come up to receive the gifts of bread and wine, which are the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, keep the Prayer of Humble Access on your lips. And remember what it teaches: God has invited us to the Table. God’s compassionate mercy allows us to accept this invitation. God’s generosity grants us the grace to connect deeply with God. And this connection blossoms as a mutual indwelling between Christ and us. Praise God that we have the opportunity to connect with God so closely, so intimately. Praise God for the gift of such Holy Communion.

—

* I capitalize Pride here because I’m speaking of the word in its sinful connotation. There’s a reason that Dante placed Pride at the base of the mountain of purgatory in his The Divine Comedy. All other sins have their roots in Pride. That being said, of course it’s okay to say that you take “pride” in your children, and so on. That’s pride of a different order.
† The version of the prayer we use in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer has a few variations form the original form and the modified one still in use today in England. Check out this Wikipedia article to see the other wordings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_of_Humble_Access
‡ Webb, Elizabeth. Commentary on Psalm 51:1-12. http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2408 [accessed: 18 March 15]

Kosmos

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment

Or the Epic Story Hidden in John 3:16

Sermon for Sunday, March 15, 2015 || Lent 4B || John 3:14-21

kosmosWe Christians often make the mistake of making God much smaller than God is. There are generally two major categories that this mistake falls under. First, the limits of our language make describing God in any accurate way impossible. No word or combination of words that has ever been invented can do justice to the sublime combination of power, grace, and harmony that is our God. Whenever we say something true about God, we always have to add, “Yes, and…,” lest we think we summed up God’s character with what we said.

Second, we tend to remake God in our own image and likeness instead of the other way around. It’s true that the Genesis creation story says God created humankind in God’s image and likeness, but turning the mirror the other way around doesn’t work. God is not an old white-haired man floating on a cloud in the sky, despite Michaelangelo’s depiction on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. God is not like our own fathers or mothers, no matter how good and loving they were…or weren’t. Whatever good qualities we see in those we associate with holy living, those qualities are but a pale shadow to their perfected forms in God’s nature.

So because of the limits of our language and our self-centered inclination to see a drab facsimile of God when we look in the mirror, we Christians often make the mistake of making God much smaller than God is. And nowhere is this mistake made more often than when folks interpret the most famous verse in the Bible. I read it just a few minutes ago. Do you remember what it is? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Growing up in the Deep South, I saw the citation for this verse all over the place. “John 3:16” was emblazoned on bumper stickers, T-shirts, billboards, and signs at football games. Always without the actual words of the verse, the citation alone was something of a brand or logo for certain expressions of Christianity around which I grew up. Throughout the years, many well-meaning friends asked me if I were saved and when I had asked Jesus to become my personal savior. At the time, I got quite irked whenever anyone asked me this because it made me feel like my Episcopal expression of Christianity was worth less than theirs. But looking back from a vantage point of 15 to 20 years in the future, I bless their efforts – they were concerned enough, after all, about the state of my soul to invite me to meet Jesus in the same way they had been taught to meet him.

One night at the Fifth Quarter, which was held at Valley View Baptist Church after high school football games as an alternative activity to the hedonism that resulted when the Patriots of Hillcrest High School won, the church’s youth minister invited all the attendees to sit down. He then talked to us about Jesus, quoting from several verses of John 3, including the famous 16th verse, and in the end, prompted each of us to pray, and to ask Jesus to enter our hearts. So I did. I asked Jesus to be my personal savior. I now had a satisfactory answer for those acquaintances seeking to save my soul.

But while it was satisfactory for them, it wasn’t satisfactory for me. It felt too small, somehow. It felt like I had asked Jesus to be mine, sort of like a divine version of a valet on Downton Abbey. My personal savior. What I didn’t realize at the time was that this ritual formulation of asking Jesus to enter my heart was one way to discover he had been in my heart all the time and was in fact the one prompting me to ask in the first place. Thus, he wasn’t my personal savior. He wasn’t mine at all. I was his. The gift was that he wanted me to be his.

But to understand this gift God has given us, I had to thinker bigger than my own personal salvation. I had to read John 3:16 with a greater scope. But it wasn’t until my first semester Greek class in seminary that I had the tools to do so. (We haven’t had an ancient Greek lesson in a long time. I’m so excited!) The key to the verse is in the first couple of words: “For God so loved the world…” When we read those words in English, it sounds like God loves this planet we find ourselves on, this “fragile earth, our island home,” as Eucharist Prayer C says. Sure this love encompasses more than just me and my personal salvation, but we’re still not thinking big enough.

The Greek word that’s translated in this verse as “world” is kosmos. Do you know what English word we get from this? Yes. “Cosmos.” Not just this rock 92 million miles from the sun, but the whole universe! Space, the final frontier! All that God has created or will ever create is wrapped up in this word, kosmos. The Gospel of John thinks big; that’s why it has the temerity to start, “In the beginning…” and continue with the founding of Creation.

To even begin to understand the depths or heights of God’s love, we first must understand what God loves. It’s everything that has ever existed or will ever exist. It’s every atom in every cell in every organ in every being on every planet in every solar system in every galaxy in this universe that is still rapidly expanding, for all time past, present, and future. Nothing at all would exist if the love of God were not animating existence.

For God’s love of the kosmos, God gave the supreme gift – God’s own self in the form of God’s own Son. Thus, the gift God gave included an experience of the perfect relationship, which we name the Trinity: the Parent, the Child, and the Love between them. By giving Creation this experience of perfect relationship, God repaired the broken relationship between God and Creation. This is the epic story being told in those first few words of John 3:16.

The second half the verse and the verses that come after invite our response. Will we walk in the light of this great love or in the darkness, where we can hide in self-imposed exile? Will we choose to do all that we do “in God?” Will we choose to acknowledge that we belong to Christ, that we wish to shine in the light of the perfect relationship of the Trinity? I pray the answer to each of these questions, for each of us, will, with God’s help, always be “Yes.”

I began this sermon saying that we often make the mistake of making God much smaller than God is. Even though I’ve tried to use as expansive language as I could since then, these words still fall pitifully short of their target. But the good news is this: no matter how small we make God, no matter how much we reduce God to our level, God is always and forever seeking to expand us, to excavate more space within us for God to fill. The kosmos exists because the love of God animates its existence. That existence includes you and me, who are made in the image and likeness of God. Therefore, the love of God causes us to exist. And the gift of God – God’s only Son – causes us to love.

—

*Image: Detail from Nasa Daily Image, March 8, 2015 (Susan Stolovy (SSC/Caltech) et al., JPL-Caltech, NASA)

Incline Our Hearts

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

Sermon for Sunday, March 8, 2015 || Lent 3B || Exodus 20:1-17

inclineourheartsA few people have asked me recently why we are using Rite I during Lent. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the red Book of Common Prayer, it contains two versions of our normal Sunday worship. We usually use Rite II, which includes more modern language and more overall choices than Rite I. But during Lent this year, I chose to use the older rite, which is why we’ve been saying words like “thee,” “thou,” and “beseech” over the last few weeks. Some churches choose Rite I during Lent because they think it has a more penitential tone than Rite II, but that’s not why we’re using it. Honestly, I don’t agree with that reasoning. Rather, we are using Rite I because of a single beautifully written sentence that we repeat nine times at the beginning of each service. In our normal service, Rite II, that sentence is rendered: “Amen. Lord, have mercy.” But in Rite I, we have the opportunity to pray this beautiful sentence after all but the last of the Ten Commandments: “Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.”

Incline our hearts to keep this law. This is the prayer we pray upon hearing the commandments, which Moses brought down from his meeting with God on Mount Sinai. When we pray these words, we ask God to tilt us in God’s direction, to orient us toward God’s life-giving path. Incline our hearts to keep this law. This is not a Sunday-morning-worship-only type of prayer. This is an all-the-time type of prayer. This prayer takes our recitation of the Ten Commandments out of Sunday morning worship and puts them on our daily radar. When we incline our hearts to keep this law we intentionally lean towards God every single day, thus signaling our desire to participate in this most important relationship of our lives.

The trouble with the Ten Commandments, however, is that most of them are simple prohibitions. With two notable exceptions, they tell us what not to do. It’s hard for us, or at least it’s hard for me, to incline my heart towards keeping God’s commands when those commands mostly call for inaction. For example, there’s nothing I can do to accomplish the commandment: “You shall not steal.” Accomplishing this commandment is all about not doing something. On the other hand, one of the notable exceptions says, “Honor your father and your mother.” Now here’s a commandment that invites positive action.

By my count two of the commandments invite such positive action, while the other eight say, “You shall not [fill in the blank].” So if we desire to incline our hearts to keep these laws, we need to reframe all the commandments so they actively engage our imaginations, affect our priorities, and lead us to closer companionship with Jesus Christ. We’re not the first to do this positive spinning, by the way. Jesus himself did it when he gave his summary of the law, as influenced by Deuteronomy 6: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself.” So let’s join Jesus in imagining how to live out these commandments with positive action, as opposed to negative prohibition.

The first two commandments begin the list for a reason: they are the most important. “I am the LORD your God…you shall you no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol.” Inclining our hearts to keep these laws means ordering our priorities again and again to place God first. Because so many other things clamor for our attention, it’s easy for us to let God slip down the list. But when we keep God at the top, the other things have a way of shaking out into the right places. The more we focus on God, the more we allow God to shape our focus on the rest of life. By looking for God always, we end up discovering what God would have us see.

The third commandment: “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God.” I can’t tell you how many people have apologized to me for saying “Oh my God!” or “For Christ’s sake!” in my presence. They tend to be people who aren’t very comfortable around clergy. The way I look at this commandment is this: if ever “Oh my God!” escapes my lips, I better mean it. We can transform the oft-said “Oh my God!” from a thoughtless interjection into an authentic prayer. Whenever you say the Lord’s name, in any context, make it a prayer. Take that moment in time to pause and remember whom your life belongs to.

The fourth and fifth commandments are already formulated as positive actions. “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.” In other words, take time to rest in God’s presence in order to renew your devotion. Make a commitment to lie fallow so that, like uncultivated farmland, nourishment can seep back into your souls. “Honor your father and your mother.” In other words, commit to relationships that will last. Let the wisdom of age and experience speak. Allow tradition and memory to help shape the future. (And more mundanely, for our younger members, “Do what your parents say.”)

The last five commandments all prohibit certain egregious acts. So how do we incline our hearts to keep these laws with positive action?

Number Six: “You shall not murder” becomes “Make choices that promote the wellbeing of all life.” So many of our choices feed unconsciously into the broken systems of this world that deny this wellbeing to a substantial number of people. Therefore, this commandment compels us to make all our choices consciously, so we know how they affect other people as well as the planet we live on.

Number Seven: “You shall not commit adultery” becomes “Practice fidelity in all your relationships.” Be committed to your friends and loved ones through thick and thin. Be the person in whom others confide their hopes and fears. Be reliable. Be devoted. Be loyal. And in so doing, discover how much deeper your relationships can go.

Number Eight: “You shall not steal” becomes “Strive for justice in all circumstances.” Be a force for raising up those who have had their livelihoods stolen by the greed of others. Be an outspoken proponent of fairness and equal treatment. Live with integrity.

Number Nine: “You shall not bear false witness” becomes “Always tell the truth.” Be like the child at the end of The Emperor’s New Clothes, speaking the truth even when it’s unpopular. Be honest, no matter how hard it is or how disadvantaged you end up being in a world full of lies. In the end, the truth is easier to remember anyway.

And Number Ten: “You shall not covet” becomes “Cultivate a spirit of generosity.” Be welcoming. Be hospitable. Carry what you own lightly, neither grasping nor hoarding, but remembering that nothing really belongs to us in the long run.

With this exercise in turning the prohibitions around, my intent is not to discard the Ten Commandments as we have received them. Rather, I’m working to orient us toward living each day the positive actions which the commandments lead us to. So incline your hearts to keep these laws:

Love God. Focus on God. Make God’s name your prayer. Remember the Sabbath. Honor your parents. Promote the wellbeing of all life. Practice fidelity in all relationships. Strive for justice in all circumstances. Always tell the truth. And cultivate a spirit of generosity. I don’t know a better way to live. I don’t know a better path to follow. And so I pray in the words we said this morning after the final commandment: “Lord, write all these thy laws on our hearts, we beseech thee.”

The Last Week in July

Published on by Adam Thomas2 Comments

Sermon for Sunday, March 1, 2015 || Lent 2B || Mark 8:31-38

lastweekinjulyThe last week of July has been a wonderful week of my life ever since I was eleven-years-old. This is the week my family takes our annual vacation to the mountains of North Carolina, to a quiet Episcopal retreat center called Kanuga, where we sit and read and play board games and enjoy each other’s company and never watch TV. In 2010, the last week of July became more special because it’s the week Leah and I got engaged. And in 2014, it became even more special because it’s the week Charlie and Amelia were born. Whenever I think about the moment I slid the ring on Leah’s finger, I am overcome by the joy that echoes into the future from that hot July afternoon. Whenever I think about Amelia and Charlie screaming their welcome to the world, I am overcome by the extravagance of the gift God gave us in them. In both cases, when I remember those two focal moments, I realize again and again a profound truth. I realize that I am no longer the main character in my own life.

For the first 27½ years of my existence, my chief concern, whether I acknowledged it or not, was me. I was Numero Uno, first in line, the Big Cheese. I was in the spotlight. Sure, I lived my life with a dollop of self-sacrifice, of serving the other at my own cost, but this behavior was much more garnish than entree. I was the main character of my life: the rest of the cast never really could rival me for my own attention. Then I met Leah and everything changed. Suddenly, not only did I desire to share the spotlight, I would have been excited to give the prime spot to her alone. A whole new world of service opened up to me that I don’t think I was ever aware of before. When we came together as a couple, I finally understood the edge of the expanse of the joy of self-sacrificial love. Adding the twins to the mix makes me understand even more of that joy, but I know I have a long way to go yet.

Leah and I met five years ago this month, and looking back, I chuckle at God’s sense of humor and rejoice in God’s providence. I can just hear God the Father saying to God the Son: “You know that Adam Thomas fellow? He’s my beloved child, he’s even a priest of the Church, but he just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand your words, Son, when you said to your friends: ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’ ”

“You know what we should do?” says God the Son. “We should get him to Massachusetts so he can meet Leah Johnson. I think she will clue him in.”

You see, I spent 27½ years – that’s 86% of my life, by the way – trying to have my cake and eat it to. I tried to follow Jesus and remain the main character in my own life. But Jesus’ words and his own self-sacrificial love show us a different way.

Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” We Americans are programmed to cringe at the thought of “denying ourselves.” We want giant SUVs that have great fuel economy. We want the beer to taste great and be less filling. We want to treat ourselves to chocolate desserts that don’t have any calories. We want to pursue our happiness, and we don’t seem to mind advertisers telling us just what our happiness should look like. These marketers know they will rake in so much more money if they continue convincing us that being the main characters of our own lives is the best way to live.

Until I met Leah, I bought into the hype. I’ll let you in on a secret: when I was in elementary school, my parents sent me to a session or two of therapy because of how awfully and brutally I insisted on getting my own way. The temper tantrums I threw if we didn’t go to the restaurant I wanted to go to were the stuff of legend. One of these tantrums happened on my mother’s birthday. While that behavior faded as I got older, I still succumb all too often to our me-first consumer culture. I’d be willing to bet that you do to.

But when we deny ourselves and stop striving to be the main characters, we no longer feel shortchanged when Jesus spins the spotlight away from us and shines the light on others. These others are always the ones that Jesus desires us to see: the ones who seem to us to be the ensemble, those brought in just to fill out the cast, the extras. In our version of the film, these extras are those who have no roof over their heads or who have no money for food or who lay in the nursing home with no one to visit them. But in God’s version of the film, these extras are the stars. When we insist that the spotlight stay on us, these others remain in the shadows, too unimportant to garner any attention. But when we follow Jesus Christ as he yearns for us to, we let go of our stranglehold on the spotlight and finally see those whom he would have us see.

And when we see in this way, when we notice those outside our own spotlights, something happens that the advertisers and marketing directors never prepared us for. We discover a latent desire that Jesus’ words planted within us when we were looking the other way. We discover the desire to be generous and welcoming to those who never enjoy the spotlight. We look the ensemble cast members in the eye and realize that we want to know their names and where they grew up and what their hopes and dreams for the future are. We turn out our pockets and volunteer our time and invite the stranger to become friend because by doing so we notice clearly the footsteps of Christ walking one step before us. We feel the life of Christ welling up from within us and connecting with the life of Christ welling up from within the other, who now shines in the spotlight.

Jesus Christ is always walking one step before us, but we don’t always walk one step behind him. We stray, we go off on our own, we set up camp rather than continue following. But even with all of our wilderness wanderings and our prima donna tendencies, he continues to stay one step away, calling us back to his path. His path is hard: the way of denial, of self-sacrifice, of cross-carrying. But his path is also the way of true joy.

When we walk down Jesus’ path, the spotlight is never on us, but on those around us, those walking with us. Now that God has blessed me with a partner and children to remind me that I am not the main character of my life, I have crept slowly and haltingly onto this path and found the joy of stepping out of the spotlight, the joy of generosity and welcoming and service. Perhaps you have, too. Here’s truth: as we turn the spotlight on each other and on those Jesus would have us see, together we will notice, there marking the ground in front of us, the footsteps of Jesus Christ.