Sermon for Sunday, April 26, 2020 || Easter 3A || Luke 24:13-35
I’m not usually still in bed when the rest of my family wakes up. I often wake up some time between three and five in the morning, while everyone else gets up about 6:30. But this past Monday night, for some reason, I slept later than I normally do. I was still dreaming at quarter to six on Tuesday morning. Then, suddenly, the clock said 6:22. Leah and I were awake, waiting for the patter of little feet in footie-pajamas. Sure enough at 6:30 on the nose our five-and-a-half year old daughter came into our room and without preamble crawled into bed between us. The three of us cuddled for a while, in various configurations as dictated by our wiggly child. In one of the cuddling variations, a feeling of deep peace and soul joy came over me. For that particular moment in time, my body and my spirit were perfectly aligned to accept the love that God showers upon us through the gifts of each other. And the strange thing was that I noticed it while it was happening.
Sermon for Sunday, March 12, 2017 || Lent 2A || John 3:1-17; 7:45-52; 19:38-42
The Pharisee Nicodemus is not a member of the main cast of the Gospel according to John. In the parlance of television, he would be known as a recurring character. If each chapter of John’s Gospel were an episode of a TV series, it would fill one standard network season, and Nicodemus would guest star in episodes 3, 7, and 19. We meet him at the beginning, middle, and end of Jesus’ ministry, and each time we drop in on him, Nicodemus is somewhere new in his own journey towards an active faith in Christ.
The Gospel writer makes clear that the intention of the Gospel is to help the reader believe by telling the story of Jesus in a certain way. The writer uses Nicodemus’s three-part journey as a stand-in for our own, as we, too, journey towards more active faith in Christ. The world of Nicodemus and our own world share some striking similarities. Nicodemus lived in a world that had yet to be steeped in Christian tradition; people around him were either confused by the message of Jesus, hostile to it, or ignorant of it. Today’s world is similar; the Christian worldview no longer permeates Western culture, while confusion, hostility, and ignorance to the message of Jesus are in long supply. Today, we’re going to go on the journey of our guest star Nicodemus to see what his participation in the story of Jesus has to tell us about our own. Continue reading “The Guest Star”→
Sermon for Sunday, June 26, 2016 || Proper 8C || Luke 9:51-62
During the summer, I am preaching without a text, so what follows is an edited transcript of what I said Sunday morning at the 10 a.m. service at St. Mark’s.
As I was preparing for this morning’s sermon, I was having trouble, and I realized the reason I was having trouble is that I was actually preparing for four sermon, and not for one sermon. So today is the beginning of a four part series that goes all the way until I start my vacation. So you have to come back for the next three Sundays to get the whole thing. The topic of this sermon series is a topic we don’t talk a lot about in the Episcopal Church, but it is something you hear a lot of in other churches and in popular culture. It is the concept of being “born again.” You’ve heard that before, right? Probably not here. Continue reading “Born Again, part 1: New Life”→
(Sermon for Sunday, July 7, 2013 || Proper 9C || 2 Kings 5:1-14)
Naaman, the central figure of today’s story from the Hebrew Scriptures, has superiority issues. And for good reason. He is, after all, the commander of the army of the King of Aram. He has the resources to travel with an entourage, not to mention bags and bags of precious gold and silver. He has the political clout to rate an audience with Israel’s king. And to top it off, Naaman has chariots! (No, seriously. The mention of chariots is a big deal. My Old Testament professor in seminary used to joke that Israel had “chariot-envy,” because it didn’t have any. So to mention this guy has chariots – watch out, he’s the real deal.)
So this Naaman is a big wig, the alpha dog; he’s large and in charge. And he knows he’s on top. We shouldn’t expect anything less, then, when Naaman explodes in a rage at the way Elisha the prophet treats him. He just saw the king, and now this lowly prophet won’t even come outside, but instead sends a messenger? To add insult to insult, the task Elisha gives him in order to clear up his skin condition is laughably small and easy – too small and easy, of course, for someone of Naaman’s stature.
Where’s the epic quest to pick the first bud of the first flower to bloom on the treacherous mountain peak a year’s journey to the west and then make a tea of its petals and drink and be cleansed? Where’s the command to chase after the last shooting star of the meteor shower and find its resting place far across the sea and melt down the metal to make a set of armor which, when worn, will rid the wearer’s skin of leprosy?
I’m sure Naaman expected this type of challenge when he went to see Elisha the prophet. Naaman’s superiority complex told him he was suited only for the most difficult and heroic of circumstances. His mission would, of course, match his own grandeur.
But he receives something wholly different than he expected. Elisha’s instructions invade the bubble of Naaman’s superiority and remind him he’s not quite as special as he thinks he is. Or perhaps, better yet, he’s not special for the reasons he thinks he is. Elisha gives Naaman quite an ordinary task to do. A small, easy task. Leave the mountaineering and meteor-seeking alone. Just go and wash in the closest river.
Thank God for Naaman’s servants. They have the measure of the situation and enough guts to set their commander straight. In the end, Naaman accomplishes the greatest task of all – he tames his own ego – and then he goes and washes in the Jordan. And he is made clean.
Naaman’s mistake is one of the most common mistakes we can make in our life of faith. It’s so common, in fact, that most of us probably don’t even recognize it as a mistake. Here’s what I mean. Naaman’s delusions of grandeur prompt him to expect an epic quest in order to be healed. Therefore, he is unprepared for the simple steps that will lead to his cleansing.
While Naaman might have been up for whatever challenge Elisha threw at him, when faced with the same prospect, I’d hazard most of us would rather just slink away. Indeed, many of us balk at connecting deeply with our own spiritual journeys because we see them as too difficult or arduous even to begin. We look out at the vast expanses of our lives, and we see the epic quest to follow God from now until eternity. The goal is so lofty, the mission so grand that instead we decide we haven’t faith or stamina enough to see it through. And so we never even try. We just roll over and hit snooze on our relationships with God.
But again, our mistake is the same as Naaman’s. We expect the grand and lofty lifelong challenge of following God, and so that’s what we see. What we miss is our version of Elisha’s instructions. Just go and wash in the river, he tells Naaman. Just take a deep breath and greet me in silent prayer, God whispers to us.
You see, we our mistaken when we look at our spiritual lives and see the whole long, arduous journey at once. Yes, the journey will be long. Yes, the journey will be arduous. Not to mention full of joy. But whatever the case, we don’t experience the journey as a whole. We live the epic quests of our lives with God one moment at a time, one step at a time, one prayer at a time, and that’s what we should concentrate on – the simple things we can commit to today and then commit to again tomorrow and the tomorrow after that. And so our epic quests to follow God grow slowly, imperceptibly, as we, moment by moment, choose our own versions of Elisha’s instructions to Naaman.
The brilliant writer Anne Lamott explains it all this way. (She’s talking about writing, but the point is the same.)
Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.” (Bird by Bird, p. 19)
The spiritual life is hard. But God doesn’t call us to live the spiritual life. God calls us to live the spiritual moment. Bird by bird, God whispers to us. Just take it bird by bird.
During the summer, I am preaching without a text, so what follows is an edited transcript of what I said Sunday morning at the 10 a.m. service at St. Mark’s.
Naaman, the central figure of today’s story from the Hebrew Scriptures, has superiority issues. And for good reason. He is, after all, the commander of the army of the King of Aram. He has the resources to travel with an entourage, not to mention bags and bags of precious gold and silver. He has the political clout to rate an audience with Israel’s king. And to top it off, Naaman has chariots! (No, seriously. The mention of chariots is a big deal. My Old Testament professor in seminary used to joke that Israel had “chariot-envy,” because it didn’t have any. So to mention this guy has chariots – watch out, he’s the real deal.)
Where the Wind... 