Thanksgiving

Grateful For How God Made Me

I’m seeing “30 days of thanks,” “30 days of thanksgiving” everywhere this year. They are programs encouraging people to identify one thing they are thankful for every day over the course of 30 days. It seems everyone is doing “30 days of thanksgiving.” At least everyone on Facebook…

But we don’t need computer games, of course, to prod us to count our blessings. This season invites thankfulness, encourages us to count our blessings, to be grateful. Gratitude is a very good thing. And certainly each one of us has way more than 30 things to be grateful for.

Some of you may remember that last year I created a scheme with five stages of thanksgiving. Gratitude was stage two, one up from clueless entitlement. Stage three was donor appreciation— being grateful that someone has given us what we have. Stages four and five involve us making a response. Expressing our thanksgiving to the donor and finally sharing with others what we’ve been given.

But back to gratitude. These 30 day projects are good. We need to count our blessings. It occurs to me that we probably cycle through stages 2 through 5 over and over again. But we need to start with gratitude.

Reading what people have posted on Facebook, it’s mostly what you’d expect. People are thankful for family, the beauty of nature, freedom, friendship, the Thanksgiving feast or a favorite food. We all have much to be grateful for. I want to take that sort of list and stretch it just a bit.

One. In addition to gratitude for the abundance of the Thanksgiving table… In addition to gratitude for all of the people who planted and tended and transported that food to our tables…. In addition to gratitude for fertile soil and refreshing rains that nurture the growth of the food that sustains us… in addition to gratitude for these things, I’m grateful that God created us with senses of taste and smell. God created us with a capacity to enjoy food, beyond just eating it. I’m grateful for all of our senses, but Thanksgiving evokes taste and smell in particular. Smells and tastes that bring us joy; that nurture our souls as well as our bodies. And because we have the capacity to taste and see and smell, we also have the promise our senses may bring us new tastes, new joys yet ahead.

Two. In addition to gratitude for the blessings of the particular family members and friends who are a part of my life, I am grateful that God created us with the capacity and the yearning for friendship and love. God created us with a desire and an ability to form relationships. Relationships that enable us to be more than we could ever be on our own. And it is this capacity for relationships that enables to know God with us in our lives.

Three. In addition to gratitude for all of God’s creation, I am grateful for the spark of creativity that is within us all. Within us because we have been created in the image of the creator God. We can create. Creativity is a part of who we all are. This means we can be co-creators with God. New music, new art, new technical wonders are yet to be created.

Four. In addition to gratitude for the freedoms I enjoy in particular as a citizen of this country, I am grateful that God created human beings with a passion for justice and freedom. We are free because God created human beings with a passion for justice and freedom. And because God created us with a passion for justice and freedom this ensures that gratitude for freedom will not stop with us today in this country. In the future other peoples will come to have occasion to be thankful for new freedom and justice.

This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for all God has given me, but perhaps more profoundly, I am grateful for how God has created all of us. I am grateful that we have been created with the capacity for joy and wonder and the yearning to nurture our souls. And I’m grateful that we have been created in such a way as we have reason and cause to hope. To hope for new joys and wonders, to hope for richer relationships and an ever deepening faith. To hope for justice and peace and the coming of God’s kingdom.

Last Sunday after Pentecost - November 24

Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle

Today is the Last Sunday after Pentecost, the last Sunday of the church year. It is also informally known as Christ the King Sunday. Hence the references in the Gospel to Christ as King and to the Kingdom.

Thinking about the church calendar led me to think about time in general. There is a book by Stephen Jay Gould which is titled: “Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle.” Two great images or metaphors for time. Time as arrow. Time as cycle. Gould died just a few years ago. By training, he was a paleontologist, but he wrote extensively for both popular and scientific audiences.

Time as arrow; time as cycle. We recognize and experience both of these qualities of time in our life in the church. Time as cycle. A cycle, of course, is a pattern that repeats itself over and over again.

We experience time’s cycle in the Daily Office as it is offered to us in the Book of Common Prayer. Daily Morning and Evening prayer. As we pray the dawning and setting of each day, day after day, we experience time as cycle. And there is comfort and a sort of anchor in the routine of the cycle. And reassurance that each new dawn will come. Another book I like the title of is a book about Benedictine spirituality entitled “Always We Begin Again.” Renewal, reconciliation… are offered to us again and again and again.

Our weekly celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Lord’s Day is a manifestation of time’s cycle. You may know that in the church, the number eight signifies fulfillment. The full cycle of Sunday through to the next Sunday. We celebrate the octave of Easter. Easter through the next Sunday, a sign of the fulfillment offered in the resurrection hope.

And, of course, there is the yearly cycle of the church calendar. One cycle ends today but another begins next Sunday. The cycle of seasons in the church calendar… Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost… remind us of the great cycles of life and remind us that we are connected to God throughout all of the seasons of our lives.

By definition, cycles are infinitely repetitive. An arrow, on the other hand, has direction. It has a beginning and an end. It starts in one place and ends in another. We all experience time as arrow, of course, as we age, living our lives as a former priest of mine used to say from the death we did not request to the death we cannot escape. But for us as Christians, time as arrow is particularly important because we affirm the arrow’s trajectory is in God’s hand. The purpose and destination of time’s arrow are in God’s hands. We move from creation to kingdom, in our individual lives and in all that is. We are headed for something. God’s kingdom.

Our diocesan convention was Friday and yesterday. Bishop Lee talked about time’s arrow a lot. In a way, it was the theme of the convention. He didn’t use the language of time’s arrow, but it was what he was talking about in his sermon at the Eucharist and in his address to convention. His sermon was all about the positive nature of change. Change is an inevitable aspect of time as arrow.

The theme of creation was “Behold, I make all things new.” Thinking about time’s arrow, listen to this excerpt from Bishop Lee’s address to convention:

The theme for this 176th convention is that we are doing a new thing. Actually, I think that's not quite the title I want to use. I think I'd rather say, and I'll proclaim it here right now: God is doing a new thing. God is always doing new things. Our scriptures, the vast sweep of the contemplative tradition, the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection itself and the sending of the Holy Spirit -- they all testify to the truth of it. God is always doing a new thing, in creation and its ongoing renewal, in the evolution of human culture, in the community of faith, in our own individual lives. God is the prime mover, the creator and sustainer of all that is or every will be, and God's mission is the repair, the restoration, the re-newing of that creation into a right relationship with himself. The new thing is God's project and we who have been redeemed by God's unexpected action in Jesus, we have the staggering invitation to join in God's mission of making all things new. That's what we're for, that's what all of this is all about. There's a phrase ascribed to everyone from Abraham Lincoln to the management guru Peter Drucker, "The best way to predict the future is to create it." The Christian faith proclaims that God invites us to be nothing less than co-creators....

A friend of this diocese, the author Diana Butler Bass said to me once that out of all sins nostalgia may be one of the most pernicious. Nostalgia says that the best has already happened. But the God we worship, the God made known to us in Christ, the God who has not and never will leave us, that God is the one who makes all things eternally new. The best is always yet to be. I give thanks to serve with you as a people who are daring to believe that the future belongs to God and so do we.

The Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost - November 17

What We Can Become
Isaiah 65:17-25
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19

As a girl, I occasionally watched the original “Let’s Make a Deal,” with Monty Hall. I haven’t seen any of the more recent spin offs. Memories of the show popped into my head as I was considering this week’s sermon. On a day when our collect commends “all holy Scripture” to us for our learning, I was not excited about preaching on any of the lessons. Between the Old Testament lesson from Isaiah, the epistle from second Thessalonians and Luke’s gospel I felt like the contestants randomly picked Door #1, Door #2 or Door #3.

And I might ask you, for your sermon today would you like Door #1, Door #2 or Door #3? On the game show, the contestants don’t know, of course, what’s hidden behind the doors. We have equally little control over the readings that are presented to us by the lectionary on a given Sunday. A lot of thought has gone into the development of the lectionary, however. And I have said before, and would say again even today, one of the great strengths of a set lectionary is that it forces us to deal with passages in Scripture we might rather avoid. So let’s look behind each of the doors.

Behind door #1 we have a reading from what is often called Third Isaiah. The Biblical book we call Isaiah is a compilation of several writers. It’s a glorious image of new heavens and a new earth: Jerusalem (!) a joy with no more weeping. No more infant mortality or premature death. No more hunger. No more hurtfulness or destruction. And the wolf and the lamb will feed together. Glorious, yes, but about a realistic as me winning the grand prize on a game show. How can I preach this vision when it is so far from the reality of the world we live in?

Behind door #2 is a doozy of a stewardship sermon. Maybe it’s a good thing the vestry did not specifically charge me with a stewardship sermon this year. This isn’t one I’d really like to preach. Writing to the Christians in Thessalonica, Paul is very critical of people whom he calls idle busybodies. And to the Christian community, he says: “keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us.” In this passage, Paul is not talking about withholding government entitlements, although some have interpreted it that way. He’s talking about people who don’t pledge… The context is the common life and mission of the Christian community. Paul is talking about folks who do not offer their talents and the fruits of their labor for the support and mission of the Christian community.

Moving on to door #3. This passage from Luke’s gospel is meant to be reassuring. People are worried about the end times. And Luke offers Jesus’ words of assurance. You don’t need to worry about the end of time. Before it comes there will be wars and insurrections, great earthquakes, famines and plagues, and dreadful portents from heaven. Don’t worry. Before the end times, you will be arrested and persecuted and betrayed by your family… Don’t worry.

We’ve got one more week of this before Advent!

So which sermon would you like? Door #1, door #2, or door #3?

On a day when the collect does encourage us to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest Holy Scripture, let’s spend a little more time with each lesson.

There is a theme. The future determines how we live in the present. That’s hard to put into practice, but it’s the Christian perspective. God’s hope for us, God’s promise to us affects how we live today. We are sustained and motivated, in the present, not by what we have been, but by what we can become.

In reading on these passages I learned something that helps with the Isaiah passage. It is a hymn exalting the temple rather than strict prophecy. One commentator writes: “The motifs in the text are ones found in other ancient Near Eastern texts that exalted temples. Temples were viewed as the residence of the deity; in other words, built metaphors that symbolized their belief that their god was in their midst. Temple hymns viewed the earthly temple as a derivative of the deity’s true residence in heaven.” Worshiping in the temple, people encounter the heavenly vision. Within worship they see and experience God’s desire for God’s people and for creation.

So, looking again at Isaiah, people know that when they are working to reduce hunger and infant mortality, they are doing God’s work, they are helping God’s desire come to fruition.

The wolf and the lamb may never feed together in the natural world around us, but whenever we work for reconciliation between people for whom enmity has become a seemingly inevitable way of life, we are working for the fulfillment of God’s desire, bringing wolf and lamb together. I can think of quite a few examples of people in our contemporary world for whom enmity has become a way of life:

• Israeli and Palestinian. 
• Al Qaida and American. 
• (This is not a joke.) Tea party and liberal democrat. 
• Rival gangs in Chicago. 
• Estrangements within some families. 

There are things we can do. We may not have a place at international negotiating tables, but we can be thoughtful in the way we filter the news. In the way we speak of others. We can help the heavenly vision shine beyond the temple and into the world.

Moving on to Second Thessalonians. We don’t really know who the idle busybodies were or why they were disrupting and/or not contributing to the mission of the Christian community. Maybe they thought the end was near and assumed there was no need to tend to the present. Paul is very clear: the end is not an excuse for idleness; it is motivation to greater intensity. An awareness of the future end or fulfillment of time should encourage Christians to take more seriously the Christian life and community. If the future on our horizon is not about juggling this week’s calendar or the stresses of the holiday, but rather is about the second coming… well all of a sudden the Christian life and supporting and living that life within the Christian community shoots up quite a few notches on the priority scale. And the thing is, for us today, making the Christian life and support of the Christian community higher priorities will help with all of those other things.

And Jesus in Luke’s Gospel simply says, persevere. Perseverance is a Christian virtue. The Gospel was written after the fall of the temple in a time of trial for the early Christians. What Jesus predicts in Luke has already happened. Jesus says: I have not abandoned you. Persevere. “By your endurance you will gain your souls.” At least for me, this phrase does not mean that by enduring we will earn salvation. It is based in the presence. As we endure, we will grow our souls. Endurance nurtures and strengthens the soul. But a vision and promise of God’s future kingdom helps motivate endurance.

These weeks at the end of the church year have the potential to powerfully inspire us. They urge us to look forward, and to live in ways that bring God’s future into the present. That’s really what living faithfully is all about. To be sustained and motivated, in the present, not by what we have been, but by what we can become.

All Saints' Sunday - November 3

People the Lights Shine Through

We are celebrating All Saints’ Day today. Of the seven Principal Feasts in our calendar, it is the only one that the Prayer Book allows us to transfer from its appointed day—November 1—to the following Sunday.

Reading from Holy Women, Holy Men, our book for the calendar of saints: The Church is “the communion of saints”, that is, a people made holy through their mutual participation in the mystery of Christ. This communion exists through history, continues in the present, and endures beyond the grave and gate of death into heaven, for God is not a God of the dead but of the living, and those still on their earthly pilgrimage continue to have fellowship with those whose work is done. The pilgrim Church and the Church at rest join in watching and praying for that great day when Christ shall come again to change and make perfect our common humanity in the image of Christ’s risen glory.

The Church, us, is the communion of saints. We are saints. Made holy, by God, through our mutual participation in the mystery of Christ. All the way back to the Old Testament, although sainthood would have been described a bit differently, the faithful, the saints were all those who are in relationship with God. God makes God’s people saints.

For another different, but complementary definition of sainthood, I want to share a story. This story has circulated around the church for a while. You’ve either heard a hundred times or maybe none. In any case, it bears repeating.

It takes place in a church like ours, where we are surrounded every time we gather for worship by saints depicted in stained glass windows. The Rector calls children forward to talk about saints and she asks them: Who are the saints? She probably hopes they will say: “We are!” or, “All of us in the church are the saints.” Those are good answers. But one child says: “Saints are people the light shines through.” Saints are people the light… shines… through… Saints are people God’s light shines through.

Last night at the All Souls’ Day service I talked about the faithful departed being part of the glorious company of the saints in light. Today I’m talking about the faithful living. The faithful alive are part of the glorious company of saints whom “the light shines through.”

We are saints by virtue of our baptism and our participation in the fellowship and communion of the church. But to live more saintly… If we want to live better as saints, it seems to me it’s not about developing more heroic spirituality or faith; it’s about letting the light, God’s light shine through. It’s not about how we can become stronger or more heroic; it’s about how we can become better at letting God’s light shine through.

So to carry this metaphor a bit further, it seems to me we need to do two basic things if we are to live as saints, as people who let God’s light shine through us into the world, into the lives of others. If we are to be people who transmit and share God’s light with other people, two things need to happen.

First, we need to stand in the light. For the light to shine through us, it needs to shine on us. We need to stand near the light. And second, we need to be transparent.

So there are all sorts of ways to stand in the light of God.

• We can study and learn from these saints around us in our windows. They shine God’s light on us. We can learn from and seek inspiration from their stories and their example.
  
• Or you can stand next to, spend time with other living saints in your lives. You know who they are. Maybe some are here in this church today. Stand next to the people who shine with God’s light for you.
  
• Participate in the Body of Christ. Christ’s light shines here. In the fellowship and sacraments of the church.
  
• Read the Bible. The light of God shines brightly from the words of Scripture.
  
• Stay close to God and close to God’s people. Stand near the light of God. 

And how do we be transparent, so that the light of God that shines on us may shine through us to bring God’s light to others?

• Sin is what darkens us, makes us opaque. Confession and reconciliation are the antidote to sin, the process by which the dark, opaque places within us become transparent windows through which God’s light may shine. Confess your sins and seek reconciliation.
  
• And pray. Prayer in general, I think, creates transparency. Maybe this is the best reason to pray. All sorts of prayer—intercession, thanksgiving, adoration. Whenever we pray, we open ourselves to God. We open up patches of transparency where God can get into us and shine through us. When we pray, we become transparent 

Saints are people the light shines through. So stay near the light and be transparent, so that God’s light may shine through you and into the world.

All Faithful Departed (All Souls' Day) - November 2

The Glorious Company of the Saints in Light

All sorts of cultural traditions, liturgical traditions and superstitions are associated with this day, November 2, known as All Souls’ Day. In our calendar it is called All Faithful Departed. I have resisted celebrating it in the parish in part because I don’t like to differentiate between saints. Why should the famous saints get their own day, All Saints’ Day, and the rest of us are shunted off like a postscript to the next day? We are ALL saints, so ALL SAINTS’ DAY should be enough.

A number of things led me to reconsider that position. As I have said, I’ve come to think that All Souls’ Day presents an opportunity to do powerful pastoral liturgy.

As a liturgical celebration, it’s new to me, so I’ve been reading up. Any commemoration of this day was abolished at the time of the Reformation because it was associated with Roman Catholic abuses of masses for the dead. But it has found its way back into our calendar. It seems to meet a need. Guidelines for liturgical rituals for this day vary. Some stress this service as a Requiem. Others emphasize its association with All Saints’ Day. It is both.

And it seems to me that may be the most important message of this day. This day, this commemoration, is both requiem for the dead and celebration of the communion of all saints. And it reminds us that every Requiem service is a Saints’ day service. A service commemorating the saint who has died. We talk a lot about burial services as Easter services, and of course they are primarily services of the resurrection. But every burial service is also a saints’ day service. We remind ourselves of that today. You know we celebrate the famous saints on their death days… the day they entered into the “glorious company of the saints in light.”

The glorious company of the saints in light. That phrase is from the commendation that we say at every burial service. “Into your hands we commend your servant: Receive her in the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and in to the glorious company of the saints in light.”

All the faithful departed are now among the saints in light. And tonight we surround our memories of them with light to help us remember that they are among the glorious company of the saints in light. Saints and light go together.

Light is powerful. Literally and metaphorically. Light brings hope, casting out darkness. Even the tiniest candle cannot be defeated by the dark. Light is unconquerable. Light illuminates, making the truth of God’s love clear and radiant. Light guides, showing the path that is steady and safe. Light warms and enfolds. And I’m not sure why, but light celebrates. Light’s shimmering brightness enkindles rejoicing.

Today we remember that all of the faithful departed are the glorious company of the saints in light.