Worship – Page 5 – Where the Wind…

A Thanksgiving Day Meditation

Published on November 28, 2013 by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

I would like to lead you in a guided meditation for the next several minutes. This meditation is about various aspects of thanksgiving, of gratitude. We will give thanks for things that have always been and things that have never been; we’ll give thanks for the past and the future; we’ll give thanks to God, who is always showering upon us reasons to be thankful. So I invite you to close your eyes, get as comfortable as you can without falling asleep, and take a few deep breaths.

***

Dinner at a new restaurant. Seeing old friends. Getting my slippers out of storage. I have given thanks for each of these things in recent days, and each has been something new – a change from an earlier condition or a recent addition to the world at large.

Now, I don’t know about you, but for me giving thanks for new things or for things that have recently changed takes up most of gratitude time. The new things jump out at us. They vie for our attention. The things that have always been there remain in the background, quietly making our lives comfortable or joyful or meaningful. Because the things that have always been don’t call attention to themselves, we fail to give thanks to God for them as often as we should.

For the next few moments, I invite you to think of something that you can’t remember doing without: it can be as basic as breath or your dog’s earnest affection. It can be the simple fact that you’ve always had clean clothes in your drawers or a hot meal on the table. Think of something you’ve never given thanks for because it has silently endured throughout your life, never calling attention to itself and never failing to make your life better. Give thanks to God for this something-that-has-always-been.

***

Now we’ll take a look at the opposite – thanking God for things that have never been. This type of gratitude is possibly even more difficult than the previous kind because it involves stepping into other people’s shoes in order to appreciate your gifts and blessings.

When we stand in another’s shoes, we gain the capacity for perspective. Sometimes, it’s difficult to see things when you’re right up close to them and seeing them from the same angle you always do. To give thanks for something you’ve never had, you might need to view your life from that other perspective. Perhaps you’ll give thanks because diseases that have affected people all over the world for hundreds of years won’t affect you because you were inoculated as a baby. Perhaps you’ll give thanks because you’ve never known a time when your stomach was so empty for so long that you forgot how to be hungry. Perhaps you’ll give thanks because every time you slept outside in your life, you did so because you chose to – and you always had s’mores as the campfire died down.

For the next few moments, I invite you to think of something you’ve never experienced, something you don’t want to experience because it is unhealthy or degrading or worse. Now thank God that this thing has never happened to you. But don’t stop there. Recognize that the thing-that-has-never-been always is happening somewhere in the world – maybe next door, or a few blocks away, or across an ocean. How can you help make that thing change from an always is to a never again?

***

Sometimes, blessings are hidden within moments of our past that sure didn’t seem like blessings at the time. When we were living through those times, we never expected to give thanks for them one day. But what we forget is that God doesn’t comprehend our lives in the limited linear fashion that we do. God, I think, comprehends our lives as a whole – not as a series of events. We view our lives as though flipping through the pages of a magazine, one to the next. God sees our lives as collages, in which all the pages are pasted together.

So for the next few moments, I invite you to give thanks for something in your past that didn’t seem like a cause for gratitude at the time. Reflect on how this event fits into the overarching narrative of your life. What did you learn from it? How did God support you as you went through it? What do you know now that God knew then?

***

When we take the long view of events in our pasts, we find the ability to thank God for difficult and challenging times that have led our lives in directions we never imagined. This sort of gratitude accomplishes more than simple thanks to God. By acknowledging that we have no idea how our lives are going to turn out, we practice humility in the face of the expansive unknown that we benignly call “future.”

So for our final few moments, I invite you to give thanks for the vast expanse of possibility the future holds. This sort of thanksgiving is the birthplace of hope – which is the willing expectation that the boundaries of possibility are far wider than we perceive. So give thanks to God for possibility, for newness, for adventure. And then take a step with God into the untamed wilderness that is tomorrow, knowing all the while that God has already explored this jungle and will lead you through.

***

The next time you go to the table at your church to celebrate the Great Thanksgiving – better known by its Greek name “Eucharist” – I invite you to hold onto these things for which you have given thanks. As you receive the presence of Christ in the bread and wine, offer your thanksgivings back to God. And in the exchange, know that God is always and forever giving thanks for you.

Ten Things I’ve Learned About Preaching

Published on October 9, 2013 by Adam Thomas2 Comments

pulpit This post also appears on MinistryMatters.com here.

I recently realized something that astounds me: this summer I passed the century mark for sermons preached. Since my first incoherent ramblings about the Letter to the Hebrews during a Homiletics class in seminary to the sermon I’m giving this Sunday, the Holy Spirit (along with my mentors and parishioners) have taught me so much about the craft of preaching. As I look toward the horizon of my next hundred sermons, I’d like to share with you ten things I’ve learned during the first hundred.

1. More than anything, preaching a sermon is an act of trust. I have discovered that the sermons I think are home runs don’t generate nearly as much “press” as the ones that I think are only okay. But every time I give what I think is a mediocre sermon, multiple people come up to me afterwards and tell me how much it spoke to them. Could this possibly be because I decided I needed to trust God more in the preaching of the mediocre sermon than the home run? And in that act of trust I was more open to the movement of the Holy Spirit during delivery? And in that openness I connected more intimately with my listeners? If so, I can conclude one of two things: either I can strive to write only mediocre sermons (nope!), or I can strive to find the place of openness and trust each time I mount the steps to the pulpit. As I move into my next hundred sermons, I ask God to bless me with an ability to trust God’s movement that is independent of my perceived skill.

2. Preaching is not about showing expertise. I learned this lesson thanks to the Rev. Dr. David Lose and the Biblical Preaching Project I participated in at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. Showing yourself to be an “expert” in the pulpit might seem like a good thing to do; after all, your listeners want to know that you know what you’re talking about. But be careful taking this too far. If you actively try to demonstrate your expertise or your fluency with biblical interpretation and theology (or worse, discipleship), then you run the very real risk of causing a complete disconnect between yourself and your listeners. Your demonstration will reinforce in their minds that they aren’t good enough or knowledgeable enough to study the Bible or think theologically (or worse, be disciples). It is not your job as the preacher to be the rock that they hang their faith on. (That’s someone else’s job and he’s way more important than you.) If you’ve been in a congregation long enough, they’ll know you know what you’re talking about. They’ll trust you. Use this trust to show your own vulnerability, the shaky times you’ve had, the moments when God surprised you from an unexpected trajectory. Not displaying expertise does not mean not having any. It just means that it shouldn’t be the takeaway from the sermon. Be vulnerable and you will connect even more with God and with the people.

3. The best sermons are about exactly one thing. I learned this the first month of college when my first three-page paper was returned to me without a grade and the words “too many ideas” scrawled in barely legible professor-script. That semester, Dr. Huber taught me the value of presenting one thought and developing it deeply. Moving this practice to preaching is the best advice I can give. Whether your sermons are ten minutes like mine or forty minutes like the ones my in-laws hear every Sunday, the sermon should still be about one thing. Every sentence should support the main thought. If it doesn’t, cut it. Your listeners will stay with you, and you’ll have more room to say what you need to say. Keeping your sermon to exactly one thing will protect you from the dreaded “greatest hits” sermon; that is, a sermon which says everything a passage of scripture could be about but expands on none of them. Pick an idea and work with it. “Turn the crystal,” to quote my Homiletics professor. After all, you’ll get another crack at the readings in three years.

4. The more specific the more universal. This might seem antithetical, but I assure you it’s not. If your sermon is full of generalities or ideas with no examples to back them up, then your words are more likely to sail over the heads of your listeners. So be specific. Illustrate your point with an example that could very well happen to some of your listeners. Even if the example doesn’t hit home, it will hit closer to home than a bland generalization ever will. For example, a few weeks ago I preached about God finding us (inspired by the parable of the lost sheep). At one point, I said this:

“Perhaps you are holding your mother’s hand as she lies dying. She holds your hand back…until she doesn’t. You don’t think you have any more tears, but you are wrong. Your deep grief reveals not how deeply you loved her, but how deeply you love her, and you realize your love will never become a past tense thing. And God finds you in the continued connection between the living and the dead.”

Preaching through real world examples helps connect to the listeners, but it also serves another important purpose. It gives listeners a model by which to reflect spiritually and theologically about their own experience. Modelling this practice from the pulpit is a good end in itself.

5. Every sermon is about the preacher. You might not think that your sermon is about you because you never mention yourself, but every sermon is about the preacher, no matter the content. Even if you did only a minimal amount of self-reflection, every sermon springs from a mingling of prayer, study, examination, and experience. Oftentimes, my sermons will touch on something I’m wrestling with even if I don’t realize it’s on my mind. In the end, if the sermon doesn’t “preach” (in the sense of resonate) to the preacher, then it won’t preach to anyone else. That being said, I don’t advocate having the preacher be the “hero” of the sermon. Just remember that every sermon is about you whether you want it to be or not.

6. Every sermon should be about the listener. The sermon might be about you, the preacher, but it should also be about the people you’re preaching to. The hardest group to whom to preach is a group you’ve never met before. Once you’ve been in a worshipping community for a while, your sermons will start resonating more and more because you will have gotten to know the people. You’ll know their particular struggles. You’ll know what they’re hungry for. You’ll know how to talk to them. Once you know your listeners, there’s no excuse for a “boilerplate” sermon. Hit them where they live. Offer them enough comfort in your words that they will accept your challenge. Offer them enough challenge so they can grow spiritually. But above all, offer them the Gospel in the way they are most likely to hear it. (That’s what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did, after all.)

7. Every sermon should proclaim the Gospel. This one seems really obvious, but it’s harder to accomplish than you might think. I do not mean here that every sermon needs to be specifically about the lesson from the Gospel you read just before preaching. What I mean is that every sermon must proclaim the good news of the love of God made known in Jesus Christ our Lord. This good news might come in the form of encouragement or comfort or hope; it might come through pointing out God’s presence in the midst of challenging times; it might come from telling the story in a new, enlightening way. No matter from where you take your text, the Gospel can shine from it. As I said, however, it’s harder than you might think. I wrote a story sermon once that ended up being just a story. There was no sermon in it. But I didn’t notice until too late. When you’re done writing your sermon, look back at it, and ask the “Where’s the beef?” question. If you can’t find the “beef” then you’re not done.

8. There’s a difference between a sermon and preaching. A written sermon is like a musical score: the notes are there ready for the orchestra to play them, but until they put bow to string or lips to mouthpiece, the notes are just little black marks on paper. If written sermon is to musical score, then preaching is to making music. The preacher gives life to the words by speaking them. We call it a sermon “delivery” on purpose; God calls preachers to deliver the good news directly to where people “live and move and have their being,” just as the UPS guy delivers packages to your front door. This happens most successfully when spoken aloud. Not only that, but the preaching moment is sacred because during it the Holy Spirit rides the preacher’s breath to the listeners’ ears and down into their hearts.

9. Preaching is theatre. Imagine two preachers have written the same sermon text. One reads it in a drowsy monotone. His head is down, and he’s giving off the general air that he just wants to get through it so he can get on with his day. There’s a good chance half the congregation is checking their smartphones. The other has the text in front of her, but she’s looking up way more than she’s looking down. Her voice rises and lowers in volume; she hammers some words and lets silences linger between thoughts so they can sink in. Perhaps she uses the pulpit as a prop or gestures with her hands at appropriate times. She is engaged in the preaching moment and her whole body is part of the delivery. There’s a good chance the smartphones are safely in pockets and purses. You can hear a pin drop. The congregation is hanging on every word. Delivery matters. I’m not telling you to try to win an Oscar every time you mount the pulpit; just remember that how you speak is just as important as what you say.

10. Preaching is a gift. Have you ever stopped to think just how blessed you are to have an opportunity to proclaim God’s eternal presence, Christ’s love, and the Holy Spirit’s inspiration to a group of willing listeners week in and week out? The next time you are stuck in the middle of sermon preparation, think what a gift God has given you with this opportunity. Then remember God has also given you the gifts to preach the Gospel through words. Thank God for all the gifts in your life, and then get back to work using them.

5 Years: Snapping Turtles

Published on June 14, 2013 by Adam Thomas2 Comments

This June is the 5th anniversary of Wherethewind.com, and we are celebrating by looking back at some of the best of the last five years of this website. Today we have the first article in my two year relationship with EpiscopalCafe. Thanks to Jim and everyone else at the Cafe for giving me the chance to be part of the team. (Originally posted August 1, 2009)

Snapping turtles live in the muddy water underneath a dock that extends into Lake Kanuga. I know this because I have been slowly fattening them up with Wonderbread since I was eleven. I’m 26 now, and (while I’ve doubled my body mass in the intervening years) the turtles remain – stubbornly – about the size of my hand. All but one. There is the “Big One” that rises Kraken-like from the depths and that you only ever see out of the corner of your eye.

For years during the last glorious week of July, my friends and I have gone down to the water’s edge to feed the turtles. We used to sprint to the dock. Now we amble. Once there, we untwist our ordnance and pass out the sliced, carbohydrate projectiles. Some employ the patented tear-and-toss approach, which maximizes the number of pieces for the turtles to eat. Others drop whole slices of bread into the water and count the number of bites necessary to consume each piece.

Within seconds of the bread hitting the water, the turtles surface. Plop. Snap. The first breadcrumb disappears, and ripples are the only evidence the turtle was ever there. Plop. Snap. The second piece vanishes. Plop. Snap. We keep a weather eye out for the Kraken. Plop. Snap. There he is, the Big One, the Leviathan that God has made for the sport of it. Plop. Snap. No, it was just the way the light hit the water. Plop. Whoosh. Snap. Missed him again. Maybe next year. Plop. Snap. Plop. Snap. Plop. Snap.

The turtles propel themselves out of the depths, eyes on the dark spots on the surface. They trap the bread in their little, beaky mouths, and they dive again. They stay on the surface just long enough to snap up their sustenance before retreating to the darkness of the brackish shallows underneath the dock. After years of dropping bread to the turtles, I’ve realized that we do the same. We never stay topside in the sun for too long. We prefer the anonymity of the murk. We prefer to focus only on that bit of bread, a floating shadow above us. We prefer to surface only at feeding time, lest the daylight expose us to all the pesky problems of the world.

Now, I’m pretty sure that the above metaphor is thinly veiled enough that my impending addition of the Holy Eucharist to this discussion will seem both appropriate and timely. Here goes. All too often, we approach our worship with a Plop. Snap. mentality. For an hour and fifteen minutes on Sunday morning, we notice the Wonderbread falling from the sky, and we surface to snap up our fill. Then we dive until next week. Same time. Same place.

The trouble is twofold. First, the Wonderbread, heavenly manna, God’s grace – call it what you will – does not descend on us at predetermined times once a week. However, we condition ourselves to notice it only during those times we’ve set aside for God. We kneel at the altar rail. Plop. We lick the bread off our palms. Snap. In seven days time, we’ll commune again. In the six days in between, we are more than a little oblivious to the fact that God wants to commune with us every day. Indeed, we may say “daily,” but too often we mean, “Give us this day our weekly bread.”

Second, the surface is where the action is. The psalmist prays, “Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice.” God’s grace pulls us out of these depths, out of the brackish water underneath the dock. We surface in the brightness of day. As our eyes adjust, we notice all the injustice and desperation and fear that the murk makes easy to ignore. And as we share the bread and cup, we remember that the Body we ingest connects us to the greater body of Christ in the world. Jesus says to his disciples, “ If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” Being children of light means remaining on the surface, knowing we share our lives in a larger community, and addressing those inequities that the light throws into sharp relief. We can accomplish none of these if we dive back to the depths – back to anonymity and ignorance – immediately after receiving our nourishment.

When we begin to notice the abundance of God’s grace around us, which pulls us to the light of the surface, we can break out of the cycle of the Plop. Snap. mentality. Silent ripples should not be the only signs that mark our ascent to the surface. Just as God blesses Abraham, God blesses us so we can be blessings in the world. God nourishes us with the bread of heaven so we can nourish others.

At the end of July this year, I will once again amble to the dock to feed the turtles. I will toss the bread into the water. Plop. Ever vigilant for signs of the Big One, I will watch the little, beaky mouths spear the soggy pieces. Snap. And I will pray to God that we can all remain on the surface, paddle there in the light of the sun, and serve our Lord.

You are my Child

Published on January 20, 2013 by Adam Thomas2 Comments

I wrote this song for part of the sermon last Sunday, January 13, 2013. I based it on the line in the Gospel: “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” I believe that because we are God’s children by adoption through the Spirit, God says this to us as much as to Jesus. This song is written from God’s perspective, speaking the truth to us that God delights in us always. (See below for the lyrics.)

“You are my Child” Lyrics

You turned away so they could not see you cry;
Maybe tomorrow you’ll stand up to those guys
`Cause they picked you last for the football team
And made so much fun of your lifelong dream
To become a famous scientist some day.
You want to crawl home and go straight to bed
Because of all the hurtful things the bullies said,
And this is when I hope you hear me say:

Chorus:
You are my child, and I love you (yes, I do).
You might not believe me, but still it’s true,
I will never stop delighting in you
`Cause you are my child.

You slip your dress on and then you turn around;
Reflected back, your smile fades to frown.
You look at the models in the magazine,
And you realize you’ll never be a beauty queen
If you have to make your body look that way.
You stare into the mirror for a day or two,
And you can’t see the beauty staring back at you;
This is when I hope you hear me say: (Chorus)

You’ve gone to church on and off for several years,
But you have never quite shaken all your fears.
You’ve always been afraid you’re not good enough;
That’s why you put your faith in so much other stuff,
And feel a hole inside that grows each day.
But look inside and see me filling up that space
And know I long for you to look and see my face,
So raise your eyes, behold me as I say: (Chorus)

You cannot earn my love, nor can you lose it
I give it freely, all you need do is choose it. (Chorus)

A Minstrel’s Christmas Song

Published on December 27, 2012 by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

I wrote “A Minstrel’s Christmas Song” back in 2006, and I’ve been blessed to sing it every Christmas morning since at various churches. This recording is from this Christmas morning at St. Stephen’s. If you’d like to download an mp3 of the live recording (mistakes and all!), click here.

The Vow

Published on March 10, 2011March 10, 2011 by Adam Thomas1 Comment

The following post appeared Saturday, March 5th on Episcopalcafe.com, a website to which I am a monthly contributor. Check it out here or read it below.

* * *

A couple of months before our recent wedding, my wife and I sat down with the Book of Common Prayer and turned to page 423. We read the header and the italicized rubrics, and then our eyes fell on those famous words: Dearly Beloved. “We’re really doing it?” she asked. “We’re really planning our wedding ceremony?”

“We really are,” I confirmed. We each held one side of the book as we leafed through the service, discussing music and readings and the people we might ask to participate. When we reached the end of the printed liturgy, she looked at me, confusion written on her face. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“When do I get say ‘I do?’ ”

I stifled a chuckle, remembering that each of the brides I had counseled before their weddings had asked me the same question. From the days when brides, my wife included, draped white pillowcases from their hair and walked down imaginary aisles lined with dolls and stuffed animals, they had each dreamed of saying those two small words. When they discovered that “I do” doesn’t appear in the beautiful Episcopal liturgy, I had ten-minute mutinies on my hands. “What do you mean I don’t get to say ‘I do?’ I’m out of here. We’ll get married at the VFW hall and my cousin will get a temporary license to officiate and he’ll let me say, ‘I do.’ Come on, dear, we’re leaving.”

After of few minutes, though, they calmed down enough to listen to reason. Now, I don’t relish the thought of destroying the dreams of brides everywhere, so I try to be as sensitive as possible. But when my own bride-to-be wondered aloud about the lack of those two little words, I didn’t really know what to say. My standard pastoral line wouldn’t work on her because I’m not her priest. So instead, I patted her on the back and resisted the urge to say, “There, there.”

A few weeks later, we had our first premarital counseling session, and the priest suggested that we memorize our vows rather than have the officiant feed them to us line by line. We decided to take on the challenge. Each day from then on, we practiced the vows. We spoke them aloud, prompting each other when we hesitated and gently correcting each other when we mixed up the phrases. Over the course of a few weeks, we learned the words by heart.

In the name of God, I, Adam, take you, Leah, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.

These deep, rich words sunk into us as we learned them. They are now the bedrock of our marriage, and (I hope my wife agrees with me!) they are so much better than “I do.” These words make me wonder: how often in our lives do we vow something? We might give assurances that we’ll get the paperwork done or promise to pick someone up after school, but we don’t “vow” to do these things.

Vows don’t happen too often. Witnesses swear to tell the whole truth in court; government officials, new citizens, and military folks pledge to uphold the Constitution or obey officers. These are as close to “vows” as people make outside of the covenant of marriage. But the “solemn vow” of marriage is unique in society, and that makes it all the more special.

A vow is neither time nor place specific. It covers more than the limited scenario during which one might make a promise. Indeed, a vow is not promise, but the framework on which promises are hung. This is made explicit by the pairs of opposites that the couple speaks during the vows – better and worse, richer and poorer, sickness and health. The vow is the acknowledgment that life will never quite be the same as it was before that moment, no matter how long a couple might have been living together before marriage. When I vowed to take Leah to be my wife, I entered into a new type of existence, one in which I now (at long last) own the fact that I am not the most important person in my own life. I vowed to cherish her and to love her – come what may. I can think of no greater duty and no greater joy than to explore with her this new existence that our vow has opened to us.

This new existence begins with the vow – not two measly words – but a few sentences that change lives. And the vow begins with a few more words that are more important the all the rest: “In the name of God…” The vow would mean nothing if God were not part of it. Just as the vow is the framework for all promises, God is the framework for the vow. The new existence into which we entered a few weeks ago at our wedding happens with God’s name at the top of the page. It couldn’t be otherwise.

I know that it has only been a few weeks, and we aren’t planning on having children for a while; but I wonder if our future daughter will put a pillowcase on her head and walk down an imaginary aisle? She probably will. But hopefully, we will teach her not to look forward to saying, “I do.” Rather, we will teach her to dream about the deep, rich words: “This is my solemn vow.”

Four Bags of Saline

Published on December 3, 2010December 3, 2010 by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

I first posted this Advent reflection on the site Day1.org, which is having a Advent/Christmas Blog tour.

* * *

On Tuesday afternoon, I contracted a viral infection that systematically began evacuating the contents of my stomach, intestines, gall bladder, and liver as quickly as possible. Every half hour I scurried from my fetal position on the couch back to the restroom where I’m sure the neighbors and the folks in the next county could hear my wretched retching. After about four hours of agony, my fiancé finally convinced me to go to the Emergency Room. Severely dehydrated, I accomplished the weak-kneed feat of maneuvering down the stairwell and out to the car, all the while clutching a white, plastic wastebasket like a shipwreck survivor clinging to a life preserver.

With my fiancé supporting me, I stumbled into the ER at about eleven at night. The woman behind the counter took my information and fitted me with a bar-coded bracelet. Another woman took my vital signs and then told me to take a seat in the waiting area. I don’t know how long we waited. My sense of time was reduced to half-hourly dashes to the restroom followed by several, sweat-drenched minutes sitting on the tile floor heaving with exhaustion. Sometime after my fourth trip to the restroom, a nurse mercifully called me back. I sat in a wheelchair as an orderly navigated me to a bed in the hallway of the overcrowded emergency department.

The nurse poked an IV tube into the back of my right hand and fed into my bloodstream the same anti-nausea medicine they give to chemotherapy patients. Then she hooked up a bag of saline, and I watched through half-lidded eyes as the saline began dripping from its elevated place into the tube. My fiancé read the words on the machine to me: 500 milliliters per hour. The equipment was making the saline drip at a proscribed rate – the bag would be empty in two hours. With the anti-nausea medicine suppressing my urge, I now had a new way to measure the time.

One empty bag of saline later, I was showing marked improvement. A little color had returned to my cheeks, and I was thirstier than I had ever been. The nurse allowed me ice chips and promised a popsicle later on if I continued to feel better. I crunched down a Styrofoam cup’s worth of ice and then collapsed back on the bed in the hallway. While I sucked on the ice chips, the nurse hung another bag of saline, and sped up the distribution of the liquid into my body. Now I was receiving 1000 milliliters an hour, or one full bag.

A second empty bag of saline later, I received the promised popsicle, and my fiancé correctly guessed the punch line to the truly horrendous joke stamped on the popsicle stick (How does thread get to school? On a spool bus). After I finished the popsicle, the nurse propped me back in the wheelchair for a ride to the radiology department for a chest x-ray. The doctor wanted to make sure that my gastric pyrotechnics hadn’t torn my esophagus. The short trip wore me out, and I dozed off and on through my third bag of saline, also pushed into me at 1000 milliliters an hour.

By the end of bag three, I just wanted to go home and crawl into my own bed away from the bright fluorescence and constant beeps and blips of the ER. My doctor had other plans, however, and instructed the nurse to hang a fourth bag of saline. This time, she turned off the machine controlling the dispersal of the IV into my arm. The bag would finish not in one hour or two like the other bags, which were “pushed” into me, but at the undefined rate of gravity.

I knew that eventually the fourth bag of saline would empty. I knew that I would be allowed out of the ER for the blissful comfort of my own bed and sleep uninterrupted by illness or beeping monitors. I just didn’t know when. This is the same quandary that the season of Advent invites us to explore. We don’t know when Jesus will return, but we know that he will return. Now, we live in a culture dependent on the constant, steady, and unwavering march of time. We punch in time cards at work. The train leaves the station at 7:12 sharp. The firm expects so many billable hours. Time is money. So when Jesus himself says, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son,^* but only the Father,” his words run smack into our conception of time. How could we not know when something will happen? How could we not know when to begin our preparation for the big day?

By not putting a date and time on his return, Jesus pushes us to celebrate the much more important fact that his return will happen. He understands human nature too well. By initiating the expectation of return without a time frame, he delivers us the perfect set of variables to make us practice constant vigilance. When I knew the saline bag would run out in one hour, I had no need to watch it. The 1000 milliliters ticked by one after another in predictable, rhythmic progression. But when the nurse turned off the machine during the fourth saline bag, I had to keep looking up at it to see how quickly gravity was doing its work.

I knew the bag would empty, but I wanted to be sure I knew exactly when those last drops would fall so that I could leave the hospital. In the same way, during the season of Advent, we practice our awareness of God’s presence in our lives so that we can more readily identify the signs of Christ’s reign breaking into the world. During the season of Advent, I invite you to turn off the machines that push the IV. Let gravity take over. Know that the “when” is less important than the “what.” Jesus is coming; indeed, Jesus is always here, as well. When we worry less about the when, we can begin to see the presence of God happening all around us. So turn off your clocks. Forget marking off days in your Advent calendar. And just live with the grace-filled knowledge that Christ is coming.

It’s not easy being green

Published on May 26, 2010 by Adam Thomas1 Comment

The following post appeared Monday, May 3rd on Episcopalcafe.com, a website to which I am a monthly contributor. Check it out here or read it below.

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Every February of my college years, the entire student body suffered from a mass case of seasonal affective disorder. The campus of Sewanee is one of the top five most beautiful spots on the planet, but the beauty of the Domain was difficult to appreciate during that dreadful month. What neophytes mistook for simple fog, veterans of Sewanee winters knew was in reality a low-hanging raincloud that hovered over the campus, sapping students of the will to do anything besides curl up under a blanket and nap. The weather lasted for weeks, and when the sun finally broke through the clinging barrier, we students discovered our vigor once again, as if by some sudden leap in evolution, we had developed the ability to photosynthesize.

A version of this same seasonal affective disorder hits Episcopalians every year within a few weeks of Pentecost. We look out over the vast expanse of the upcoming liturgical calendar, and we see nearly a month of Sundays with seemingly no variation, with nothing peculiar to distinguish one day from the next. It’s a sea of green, and without the concurrence of wedding season, the Altar Guild would forget where the paraments are stored.

We call it the season after Pentecost – even the designation gives it the sound of an afterthought. At first glance, those legendary church year framers seem to have measured the year wrong. They only programmed six months! What’s there to do with the rest, those twenty-odd Sundays after Pentecost that stretch on interminably during the dog days of summer and into the heart of autumn? Truly, we blanche at the long months and wonder if the Holy Spirit has enough juice in those Pentecost batteries to get us to the first Sunday of Advent.

The other liturgical seasons are nice and short; indeed, no other season creeps into double digits. Epiphany gets the closest, sometimes reaching as high as nine (watch out 2011!), but it can’t quite get there. And the short seasons always (and satisfyingly) lead somewhere: Advent moves to Christmas Day; Christmas season to the Epiphany; Epiphany season to Ash Wednesday; Lent to Easter Day; Easter season to Pentecost. Each season is like crossing a river or lake to the next feast or fast on the other side. But the season after Pentecost is an ocean, and Christ the King Sunday is in the next hemisphere.

So what do we do to combat the spiritual lethargy that can result from so many Sundays of unvarying green vestments? Well, we could try to split it into more liturgical seasons. So, starting with the Sunday after Pentecost, we’d have the season of the Trinity until mid-August. Then, beginning on August 15^th, we’d have the season of the Blessed Virgin Mary until the end of September. Then, we’d have Michaelmas until Advent. There: three more manageable seasons for us modern people with our tweet-sized attention spans.

While this divvying up of the calendar has a certain appeal (especially to all the Anglo-Catholics reading this), I doubt the Church would go for it. So, where does that leave us? Our churches are still stuck in six months of monotonous green! The seasonal affective disorder will attack. Parishioners will fall away! (I know, I know – mostly because of summer holidays, but just go with me on this whole long liturgical season thing.)

Instead of lamenting the six months of green, let’s use the green season to our advantage. Don’t completely shut down program for the summer. Rather, take your cue from the liturgical color. Spend time each week or each month discussing how both the church and the individual can become more environmentally friendly. Devote education time to the intersection between theology and environmental sustainability. Set goals for the parish to meet by the end of the season after Pentecost to reduce consumption. Go paperless for the entire season to cut down on waste. Move service times to earlier in the day and turn off the A/C. Encourage people to bike to church or carpool. Have a light bulb changing party and replace all the lights with CFLs (the curlicue ones). Check out websites like nccecojustice.org for more ideas.

By taking positive steps to live into God’s pronouncement that we are stewards of creation and by staying active through the long days of the season after Pentecost, we can stave off that seasonal affective disorder. Even when the liturgical color hasn’t changed in four months, each Sunday is still a celebration of our Lord’s resurrection. Every Sunday we worship God, who through the Word brought all creation into being. The best way to praise God for that mighty creative act is by preserving it so countless generations to come can also praise God for God’s creation.

It’s a good thing the Green Season is so long. There sure is a lot to do.

Better wine than before

Published on January 19, 2010January 19, 2010 by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know I never pass up a chance to talk about the Gospel according to John. This past Sunday’s Gospel text was John 2:1-11, which spurred this article published in the local paper.

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tor — View from the Tor of Glastonbury. See what I mean about the grass?

On my wall, I have a collage of pictures from a college choir trip to England in 2005. In one picture, 15 friends and I are standing in front of the Tor of Glastonbury, a ruined tower on the top of a hill in Southern England. It’s a great picture—the four men and eleven women are all smiles because the late-spring sun is shining and because even the dullest blade of English grass is greener than the greenest blade of American grass. Recently, I looked at the picture and realized that fifty percent of the people in it have gotten married or engaged in the last four years. Whenever I get a new invitation or see wedding pictures on Facebook, a special kind of happiness grips me, a happiness reserved for such outward signs of God’s love as marriage.

In a Christian context, a marriage displays to the world the best attempt human beings can make at emulating the love of God. Marriage unites two people in a commitment (a better word may be “covenant”) to love and cherish one another so that the world is enriched by their love. Indeed, a couple truly meant to commit themselves to each other shows their love for God by loving one another. Because God’s love is so intimately involved, marriage is a calling, just like any other action taken on behalf of God. The celebration of this love, upon which the marriage is founded, is the wedding.

The wedding celebrates the union of two people in the love of God. How wonderfully appropriate, then, is it that Jesus first reveals his glory at a wedding feast. The location of this revelation reminds me that Jesus brings people back into union with God. This is one way to characterize his mission—he reunites me with every good thing I have lost through years of indifference and antipathy. By accepting the love of God in Jesus Christ, I find cause to celebrate the fact that, while I may have broken my relationship with God, God has never broken God’s covenant with me. The commitment God made to Abraham and his descendants finds new life in me when I discover the possibility of reunion with God through the love of Christ. Just like the wedding feast, this discovery necessitates celebration. But just like a marriage, this celebration can last a lifetime.

Imagine the beauty of a life lived in the full knowledge that God is committed to loving you. What would you do in response to that commitment? How would your life change? Jesus changes the water in the jars to wine, and not just any wine, but wine that is superior to what was originally served. In the same way, living into the covenant God has made with you brings change. You will be changed. You will become better wine than before. You will be a sign of the glory of God in the world. If this is not cause for celebration, nothing is.

When I attend the wedding of a friend, I always remember this story of Jesus at the wedding of Cana. His appearance at the wedding and the sign he performs to reveal his glory attune me to feeling the joy that spills over from the celebration in heaven when people on earth find the love of God in one another. When Jesus calls us into union with himself, we can share in the lifelong celebration of being Jesus’ disciples, the lifelong knowledge that we are becoming better wine than we were before, and the lifelong commitment to experience the love of God that continues to be present and active in the world.