Thanksgiving

Give Thanks for Giving

South Suburban Ministerial Association

Community Interfaith Thanksgiving Service

It may surprise you to hear me say that, as a preacher, I find Thanksgiving extremely challenging. It might seem like it should be a slam dunk. As a person of faith, giving thanks… giving thanks to God is one of my primary activities. Preaching on thanksgiving should be a simple pleasure.

But I find it very challenging to preach on this particular holiday. One of the challenges is unique to me as an Episcopalian. As we celebrate Thanksgiving as a national holiday here in America, part of our focus is on a historical event—the arrival of the Mayflower in 1620, the safe landing of the Pilgrims, and their spirited escape from religious persecution by the government and Church of England. The Episcopal Church in America is a direct descendent of the Church of England. The pilgrims were fleeing us.

In many ways the contemporary American Episcopal Church is a very far cry from the Church of England in the 17th century, but as contemporary Episcopalians we cherish much of what we inherited from that church. I give thanks for religious freedom, but I cannot demonize those from whom the Pilgrims fled. This business of claiming history as our own story is complicated… We might all do well to be reminded of that.

It is also challenging for me, and perhaps for you, to avoid a certain spiritual smugness as we undertake the task of counting our blessings at Thanksgiving time. It is good to be mindful of our blessings and to name them as blessings. But despite our very best and sincere efforts, it seems almost impossible not to end up thanking God that we happen to be on the right side of a world in which the distributive justice that I believe God yearns for is not realized. As we express our gratitude to God for all that we have been given, we do so in the shadow of those less fortunate. And I’m not talking about the 99% or the 1% in this country. Statistics are mushy, but I’m talking about the 15% who live below the poverty level in this country or the 25% of the world’s population that lives on less than a dollar and a quarter a day. I cannot thank God for data that indicate that the inequality of private consumption is growing exponentially.

Moving on… I do try to at least limit my Thanksgiving sermon rants…. But to name one final challenge for the Thanksgiving preacher. How can I possibly say anything tonight that you don’t already know?

Actually, I think it often is the preacher’s task to tell us things we already know… to give words to things that God has spoken into our hearts… to celebrate out loud the inner truths of life as God’s beloved people.

So let me tell you something I hope you already know. Let me tell you about the joy, and the blessing—of giving. The joy and blessing that are part of the experience of giving.

And I remind you tonight to give thanks for giving. To give thanks for the opportunities and the experiences of giving. I’m not just encouraging you to give, although I certainly do that. I’m encouraging you to give thanks for the opportunities and the experiences of giving.

There are many reasons to give of ourselves. We give back as a grateful response for what we’ve been given. We also give out of a sense of moral responsibility to care for one another. Those are values that many people might share.

Or we give just because it’s a joy and a blessing to give. Not out of a sense of obligation or as a specific response of gratitude at holiday time. Those are great, but giving just because we can is a source of joy and blessing. That’s the truth that God whispers into our hearts. That’s the experience of God’s faithful people. Faithful giving. Faithful giving brings us close to God. Giving, just for the sake of giving, is a way to share in God’s own life, to “partner” with God in God’s work. That’s an indescribably exciting and joyous experience.

So give. Your ideas, your creativity. And feel God’s creative spark kindle within you. Give your time. Give within your families. Give within your neighborhoods and your faith communities. Give your labor and know the sure guidance and unflagging zeal of God working with you. Give your laughter and your hopes. Give within the broader communities of the south suburbs. Give your music and your money. Give around the world; share with God in God’s own limitless compassion and generous love.

Faithful giving is a blessing. The opportunities and the acts of giving are something to be thankful for. So this Thanksgiving, let us give thanks for giving.

The Last Sunday after Pentecost

New Year's Resolutions

It’s the end of the year. Today is the last Sunday of the church year. In a sense, it is New Year’s Eve.

There is a profound disconnect this time of year between the church calendar and the secular calendar. In our secular lives, the holidays are coming. This is not a time to pause. Both anticipation and stress are building. Momentum is hurtling us forward into the holiday season. On the secular calendar, the new year comes after the holidays.

How do we mark that transition that comes December 31? Do we look back, reflect on the past year? Certainly the media will present us with infinite lists of the “top ten” occurrences of the past year… the top ten political stories of 2011, the top ten sports events, the top ten movies… But in terms of individual personal reflection, it doesn’t seem we do much thoughtful looking back.

New Year’s Eve's perspective on the past seems to be a whiff of nostalgia as people sing Old Lang Syne (does anyone actually know the words?) and a lot of drunken amnesia.

And we look to the year ahead with a determination to “wipe the slate clean; get a new start.” I’m just gonna put the past behind me and starting today I’m gonna be a new person.

Year’s End in the church is different. We commemorate New Year’s Eve every year with reminders of judgment. These last two Sundays of the church year always hold up before us the images of judgment… both the judgment that comes to us in this life and God’s final judgment that lies ahead of us all.

We are reminded that the slate of the past cannot be wiped clean by amnesia or denial or our own deliberate resolution to “put the past behind us.” Only God’s mercy and forgiveness can restore and renew our souls.

As we look back and reflect upon our lives and our past actions, the church reminds us to turn to God and seek forgiveness and reconciliation. And coupled with that process of reconciliation, the church talks about “amendment of life.” That’s the forward-looking part of spiritual renewal. Amendment of life. That’s what Christians call New Year’s Resolutions.

Many of you know that the annual convention of the Diocese of Chicago just concluded. St. John’s was represented by a great group. We met with others from throughout the diocese this Friday and Saturday. Part of convention is the Bishop’s Address (find the entire address here). In the context of his address this year, Bishop Lee gave us all a charge. Over the last few years Bishop Lee has articulated the diocesan mission with these words: Grow the church; form the faithful; change the world. His charge is cast in that format. These are great New Year’s Resolutions.

Bishop Lee’s charge to every member of the Diocese of Chicago:

Grow the Church… Everyone talk to one. I want every member of this diocese to have at least one meaningful conversation in the next year with someone about their life and God. This is all evangelism boils down to. We’re good at conversations and evangelism happens one conversation at a time. If you find the prospect of discussing our faith with someone daunting, fear not. The website will have a variety of resources that will help you to meet this challenge—and quite possibly even enjoy it. It might be as simple as sharing with a coworker a defining moment in your life. Throughout the year we’ll be publishing your faith stories, and you will hear more about that in the new year.

Form the Faithful… Everyone study one. I ask every member of this diocese to read one verse, one part of a chapter of the bible every day. Use Forward Day by Day, the Daily Office lectionary, an online resource such as the Speaking to the Soul blog at Episcopal Café. Join a bible study group—a great bible teacher in our church Verna Dozier used to say, “No one should read the bible! They need to study it!” Let’s read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the scriptures.

Change the world… Everyone help one. Let every member of this diocese choose one person, one cause, one agency, one outreach activity to support. I am talking about something that goes beyond the money we might toss into the red bucket outside the grocery store (although that’s great), and involves you personally, something that involves relationship, something about which you need to learn something.

Talk to one. Study one. Help one. Great resolutions for the new year.

The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost

The Opposite of Faithful:  Lazy
Matthew 25:14-30

As many of you know we, as a parish, had a funeral yesterday. It was a wonderful family affair. It was hard to tell where the Madden family ended and the parish family began. That’s how it’s supposed to be.

There is a line in today’s Gospel that is sometimes associated with memorial services. It may have slipped past you in our current translation.

Just to recap the parable that Jesus tells: A man of considerable resources is going away on a long journey and needs someone to care for his property. He summons three of his own—in some translations they are servants, in others they are slaves, in one they are bondsmen—they are his own. He entrusts his money to them. As Matthew tells the story, it’s a lot of money. More than they might see in a lifetime. Two invest the money they are given; one hides it.

The man returns and settles accounts. To those who invested the money and produced an additional return, the master (in many translations he is called lord) says: “Well done, good and trustworthy slave.” In the King James translation, the lord says, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” To the slave who did nothing with the money he was given, the master says “You wicked and lazy slave.”

This parable is often understood to teach us that we are to use the talents we are given. And it does teach us that. But I want to add weight to that teaching.

We are nearing the end of the church year. Today is the next to last Sunday in the church year. This time of year, the readings and the teaching of the church always focus on judgment. We are prodded to take the measure of our lives. We are called to accountability, to consider the consequences of our way of living.

Next Sunday, the Gospel will be about the Last Judgment. On the whole, I’m more interested in the consequences of our actions that we face in this life than I am in the final judgment. But there is no doubt that Matthew offers this parable against the backdrop of the last judgment. This is serious stuff.
 
In the shadow of judgment, the lord or master’s words to his servants are meant to highlight a stark contrast. Two different ways of living. The phrases are intentionally parallel. Well done, good and faithful servant. You wicked and lazy servant.

Good and faithful.
Wicked and lazy.

Laziness is coupled with wickedness. And this isn’t just physical laziness. It is laziness of life. And laziness is contrasted to faithfulness. This is what really hit me. If you remember nothing else, remember this. In this parable, the opposite of faithful is lazy.

How would you measure laziness? Life-laziness of body and soul? I wonder if we don’t measure it the same way we measure wealth. I can’t city any actual research, but I’ve heard that most people measure wealth as a little more money than they have. No matter what their economic status may be. They do not see themselves as wealthy. Wealth is just a little more than I have. By analogy, laziness is just a little less than I do. I am not lazy. The person who does less than me is lazy.

This parable is not about idleness providing opportunity for the devil. It’s not about all of those sayings and clichés where idle hands lead to the devil’s work. That may be true, but it’s a completely different subject. This parable is about idleness itself being wicked. It is not about wicked acts. A failure to act is equated with wickedness.

Nor is this parable is not about our “talents," about whether or not we nurture our artistic talent or use our talent of patience for good. The word talent occurs in the parable, and it’s easy to slip into talking about our talents even though that’s not what the word means here.

This parable isn’t about some particular individual talent; it is about life. It is about what we do with our lives. The word faithful is sometimes translated trustworthy, as we heard today. A faithful servant is one who is worthy of the life God has entrusted to him or her.

This is another example from the Bible where faith is not about belief. Being faithful is not about holding certain beliefs. Being a faithful servant is about what we do with our lives. Do the actions of our lives illustrate a life worthy of God’s trust? Faithfulness and trustworthiness are the same thing. To live faithfully is to act in a way worthy of God’s trusting us with life.

The alternative to faithful living is laziness. The Greek word translated lazy or (in the King James) slothful describes “those who are slow to act through hesitation, anxiety, negligence or sloth” (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Kittel and Friedrich).

At the end of this parable, the lord describes the lazy slave as “worthless.” A faithful life is a life worthy of God’s trust. A lazy life is worthy of nothing; it is worthless.

One commentator writing on this parable summarized it by saying: “Indolence in the service of the lord is wicked.” He continues: “God’s gift can never be passively possessed” (The Good News according to Matthew, Eduard Schweizer). As long as we are passive, we cannot really know or possess God’s gifts.

God has given us, entrusted us, with the gift of life. We are meant to use that life to enrich the Kingdom of God. This parable is about the Kingdom of God. The activity to which we are all called in life is to enrich the Kingdom of God. The children of God are the Kingdom of God. Enrich the Kingdom of God. That means feeding, teaching, evangelizing, giving, building, creating.

Two starkly different ways of living: Good and faithful. Wicked and lazy. And there are consequences. A good and faithful life leads to joy. Enter into the joy of your lord. Share a life of joy with God.
A life of laziness leads to outer darkness. A life without light, without joy, without God.

All Saints Sunday

The Communion of Saints

In our worship together today we are celebrating All Saints’ Day. Officially, of course, All Saints’ Day falls on November 1. But the Prayer Book allows, even encourages, us to celebrate it on the Sunday following.

There are several ways to look at what we celebrate when we celebrate All Saints’ Day. This year I really want to focus on the communion of saints. What we celebrate in worship on All Saints’ Day is the communion of saints.

A book called Holy Women, Holy Men describes the calendar of named saints who we have the option of remembering in the Episcopal Church. It replaces and expands upon earlier books that were titled Lesser Feasts and Fasts. Holy Women, Holy Men reminds us that for centuries Christians have acknowledged and celebrated the “intercommunion of the living and the dead in the Body of Christ.” There’s that word “communion” or “intercommunion.” All Saints’ Day is about the intercommunion in Christ of the living and the dead.

Holy Women, Holy Men also reminds us that church is defined as “the communion of saints, that is, a people made holy through their mutual participation in the mystery of Christ.” We, all of us, are the communion of saints. Or part of the communion of saints.

On All Saints’ Day we do not so much celebrate the saints themselves. They are individual historical figures worthy of remembrance (not, in our tradition, worthy of worship). As individuals they have stories to tell and lessons to teach us. But what we celebrate today is the communion of saints. We celebrate that there is a communion of saints. We celebrate the wonderful mystery of God’s gift of connection, communion, intercommunion. We celebrate the bonds that form the communion of saints.

Focus for a moment on the word community, rather than communion. A community is more than a group, more than a collection. Community is more than a gathering, even a gathering of people with a common interest. Community is formed by shared experience. Community is forged by mutual participation in a common experience. Experience is key. Think about how we use the word “commune.” To commune with nature is more than observing or even appreciating; to commune with nature is to experience nature. It’s all about experience. And community is all about shared experience. The experience that is shared by the communion of saints is the presence of God. We experience the presence of God, because God chooses to commune with us.

Communion, beyond our understanding of community, speaks of the reality of shared experience even across the chasm of death. A shared experience of God’s presence and therefore even a shared experience of one another within the communion of saints. Even across the apparent boundary of death.

This connection among the communion of saints is begun at baptism and cannot be broken by any force on earth. It is strengthened and enriched by participation in the life of the community. Today we baptize Ruby into the communion of saints, into the church. Part of what that means is that she will soon be connected to the experiences of Saint Richard Hooker, of Saint Anskar, and Saint Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky. Their faith, their own experiences of God will become hers as well. Saint Ruby will also come into communion with each of us and we with her. Her joy, her blessing will become our joy and blessing, too.

It is the shared experience of God that unites us and, in fact, makes us holy. I’ve been trying to think of metaphors for the communion of saints. It’s a bit like a power grid you can always plug into. Unlike our physical power grids, this one never goes down. Anywhere, anytime you can plug into the communion of saints and experience the presence of God. Or it’s like an aquifer always flowing with living water. Whenever we participate in the communion of saints, we tap into that living water. Or it’s probably like cloud computing—if I understand cloud computing. Access to God is not limited to any particular time or place or just one unique access device. Just being with one (or more) other members of the Body of Christ creates a communion, linked by the living presence of God.

It is about access. God certainly can and does appear to isolated individuals. But as participants in the communion of all saints, we have guaranteed, universal access to the experience of God’s presence. That’s something to celebrate.

The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Faith, Hope and Charity
Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Among the propers appointed for this day, once again it is the collect which caught my attention.

In it we pray to God to “increase in us the gifts of faith, hope and charity.” This is another ancient prayer of the church; Christians have been praying it in corporate worship for many centuries. The words clearly draw upon First Corinthians, chapter 13. This is the well-known passage where Paul speaks of God’s gifts of faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love. It’s a bit interesting that this passage is so commonly chosen at weddings. The sort of love Paul is talking about in First Corinthians is not romantic love, eros, it is agape. Agape, the self-giving, generous love, derived from God, sometimes translated as charity. There is certainly a place for agape in marriage, but it’s not what most dewy-eyed couples are thinking about on their wedding days.

But to return to the collect for today. We pray for the gifts of faith, hope and agape or charity.

Many of you will be aware of those questions on standardized tests where you have to pick which item doesn’t fit in the list? They give you a list like apple, pear, orange, tricycle, and you have to identify which item does not fit in the list.

Faith, hope, and charity. At least for me, at first glance charity doesn’t seem to fit in this list. It’s different. It’s an action. Charity is about what we do in the world for others. Faith and hope are just about us, God’s gifts to us. And they’re not actions; they’re internal qualities.

So, while these are all good things—faith, hope and charity—charity seems out of place in this list…

Or maybe charity is not the odd one in this list. Maybe it’s the key to understanding the other two. Charity is an action. It’s about what we do. Maybe that’s the key to a better understanding of faith and hope.

Bernard Brandon Scott (in the Saving Jesus curriculum) talks about the huge shift in Christianity’s self understanding that took place primarily during the time of Constantine and the writing of the creeds. Christianity shifted from being primarily about praxis, a set of practices, to being primarily about belief. Being a Christian used to be about what you did. Then it became about what you believed. Scott thinks this was a disastrous shift.

We definitely live on this side of that shift. We equate faith with belief. For us, we think that to have faith is to have belief in at least most of the affirmations of the creeds.

Scott and others point out that in the Bible, faith was a verb. English doesn’t even have a word for faith as a verb. In the Bible the people who Jesus commends for their faith are commended for their actions, for what they do. For example, those who are healed by Jesus have come to him at considerable personal effort and risk, trusting in his presence and power. He doesn’t quiz them on their belief; he commends them for their action in coming.
 
Some sort of belief usually motivates that action, but it’s not necessary. You can act even on those days you’re not sure any of the creed is true. In fact, that’s what Christians do. (And, as an aside, in that action you will often enrich your belief.) But it’s the action that seems to count. And action is always a choice.

Faith is the choice to act in trust of God’s presence and God’s love. To venture out, trusting in God’s presence and love. To venture out of your personal space, your personal identity, your personal safety, your personally constructed world, risking, offering your actions, your time, your resources, in trust of God’s presence and love.

Ultimately, faith is not about whether you believe that Jesus is “very God of very God, begotten of his father before all worlds.” Faith is just about acting like Jesus is real. Act in the world like Jesus is real in the world.  Act like Jesus is real.

So faith, like charity, is really about how we act in the world. It’s not so much some intrinsic quality; it’s about what we do with our lives.

What about hope? It is certainly my prayer that God will increase the gift of hope in me. And what I think of when I utter that prayer is a yearning to feel hopeful.

A sermon by Bruce Epperly (in a recent issue of Christian Century) on this morning’s Scriptures focuses on the Deuteronomy reading. Moses has done so much, worked so hard and yet he is not given to reach the Promised Land.  It seems supremely unfair.  About this, Epperly writes: “What we do in the present shapes the future and the future of those who follow us. We are always planting seeds for fruit that we will never harvest.”

It was never about Moses getting to the Promised Land. He would have made a lot better time traveling by himself. It was always about the future of God’s people.

Hope is about planting seeds for fruit that we will never harvest. Epperly also quotes a statement attributed to Martin Luther: “Even if I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would still plant a tree today.”

Hope is about acting in the present on behalf of the future. It is about creating beauty that will endure; it’s about sowing seeds of justice that will only bear fruit with future generations; it’s about living sustainably so that God’s people in the future will be enriched by the resources of God’s creation. It’s not about feeling hopeful. Hope is about acting for the future.

So like charity and faith, hope, too, is about action.

I talked about charity last week. Maybe not by name, but charity is acts of generosity through which we share the abundance of God’s blessing and goodness that we have with others. Charity is about distributing God’s blessings to God’s people. Give unto God’s people all the richness and blessing that are God’s.

So faith, hope, and charity do all fit together in this list of God’s gift. They are all about what we do as Christians. They are all about how we act, how we practice our Christianity in the world.

Almighty God, increase in us your gifts of faith, hope and charity. Give us the desire and the ability to act faithfully, in thanksgiving and proclamation of your real presence in our world. Give us the desire and the ability to act hopefully, acting not only for ourselves, but on behalf of future children of God. Give us the desire and ability to act charitably, generously sharing in your self-giving love for others. Almighty God, help us do what Christians do.