The First Sunday in Lent

Lent:  A Season for Holiness

The Great Litany is one of the main focal points of our worship on this First Sunday in Lent. English speaking Christians have been praying the Great Litany since the mid-1500’s. I like the Great Litany. Partly for that sense of historical continuity and significance. But mostly for its comprehensiveness. It covers almost every conceivable aspect of human life. We pray for God’s presence and help with everything! A reminder that we need to pray for God’s presence and help with everything…

There is one aspect of human life, though, that is not explicitly covered in the Great Litany. Time. The role of time in our lives.

I’ve been thinking about time this Lent. The Brothers of the Society of St. John the Evangelist are focusing on time this year in the Lenten materials that they provide for the use of the broader church (available HERE).

The Brothers point out that when God created the Sabbath as a part of creation, God created time as a part of the fullness of creation. And God called it holy. The Sabbath is God’s gift of time. Like the stars, the seas, the land, the rich and glorious diversity of life, time has been created and comes to us as God’s gift.

It’s actually easier for me to remember that time is a gift than it is to remember other aspects of life are gifts. We tend to persuade ourselves that much of what comes to us in life comes to us through our own skill or devices. But not time. There is absolutely nothing we can do to acquire time.

The Brothers point out that our relationship with time is complicated. I think of just some of the phrases we use that mention time. “Marking time.” Which means going nowhere, accomplishing nothing meaningful or useful. “Losing track of time.” Sometimes that’s good; sometimes it’s bad. “Buying time.” What an arrogant idea! Yet, actually, we often say “just” buying time with a tone of resignation; a reminder of the futility of human efforts to control time. Or an expression that I find terrible: “Killing time.” Killing time. Destroying the potential for life’s goodness.

The Brothers use another term. They talk about how, as sinful human beings, we pollute time. I find that a vivid expression. We pollute the gift of time we’ve been given. We could use that term, I think, to talk about sin in other areas of life, too. We pollute relationships. We pollute our own bodies. We pollute other parts of God’s creation that we have been given. We pollute God’s gift of time.

It’s not busyness or idleness that’s the problem. We can be busy and pollute time. Or we can be idle and pollute time. The issue is how we value and use this wondrous resource. The gift of time.

As many of you may remember, there is a place in the Ash Wednesday service where the officiant invites everyone to the observance of a holy Lent. I was particularly struck this year with how that invitation describes Lent as a “season,” or a “time.”

Lent is a season. And think about it… a season is a span of time that has some particular quality associated with it. Not just any chunk of time, but a span of time characterized by some quality. Lent is a season for holiness. We are called to the observance of a holy Lent. Holy means set aside for God. Lent is a span of time set aside for God. A time to spend time with God. A time to renew our relationship with God.

Lent is a gift of time. A gift of a season of time for holiness.

Cherish that gift of time, the gift of the Lenten season. Use that gift of time to be with God. Whether you want to work on redeeming the holiness of time in your life or maybe you want to work on some other aspect of your life that needs redeeming. Use the season of Lent. It is a gift of time. A season of holiness.

Ash Wednesday - February 18

A Beginning

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Surely the most memorable words from this Ash Wednesday service. And they have a sobering finality. They are meant to remind us of our mortality. Our nothingness. The bring us face to face with our death. With the end.

They are powerful words. And the ashes we impose on our foreheads at this service are a powerful symbol. The rituals of this liturgy have great power to literally bring us to that place of our end.

Is that why you are here? To experience that sense of finality? Of ending? Paradoxically, I think there is something seductive about the power of this service. There is something seductive about the sheer power of this service… even though that power brings us face to face with our deaths.

But you miss the true meaning of Ash Wednesday if you think that it is about getting to that place of death. You miss the real meaning of Ash Wednesday if you leave here thinking coming face to face with finality is primarily what Ash Wednesday has to offer. Ash Wednesday is a beginning, not an end.

Ash Wednesday is a beginning. Ash Wednesday is a dark day, but it is not about dwelling in darkness. It is not about abiding in the dark. This is the day we open a door in the midst of the darkness and see a sliver of light. This is the day we look through the darkness of night and see the smallest glimmer of light far ahead on the horizon. Quite a long ways ahead, perhaps, that is part of the power of this day… But today is about opening the door in the darkness and seeing light ahead.

Ash Wednesday doesn’t have any meaning at all without Easter. Ash Wednesday is all about Easter. Ash Wednesday is all about the promise of Easter and about God providing a way… God giving us a path to get to Easter. The journey towards Easter begins today.

Take that journey seriously, that Lenten journey. Today is both about the promise of light, of life, of renewal of Easter and about the work we must do to get there.

Do the work of Lent. Whatever you need to do to move closer to God. Whatever barriers you personally need to remove, whatever connections you need to enrich… Do the work of Lent.

For all of us, part of that work is repentance.

A bit later in this service, we will pray the Litany of Penitence. It’s sobering. We will confess our failure to love God; our unfaithfulness, pride and hypocrisy; our self-indulgent appetites and ways; our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us; our waste and pollution of God’s creation. Sobering words. Reminding all of us of the sin that separates us from God. But even at this service on this day, God grants absolution to those who are “truly penitent.” God offers us a path towards reconciliation with God.

Do the work of Lent. It is work that moves us forward. From darkness to light. From sinfulness to reconciliation and redemption. From death to life.

From the ashes of mortality to fullness, completeness of life.

Remember that you are dust. And remember that God resurrects dust.

Last Sunday after the Epiphany - February 15

Face to Face with the Glory of God:  It Happens
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9

For the last two Sundays we’ve heard stories in Mark’s Gospel from very early in Jesus’ earthly ministry. This is the year in our liturgical calendar that we focus on the gospel of Mark. Today, on this last Sunday after the Epiphany, the last Sunday before we begin the Lenten journey, we’ve jumped ahead in Mark’s Gospel to an event that occurs towards the culmination of Jesus’ ministry. On this Sunday, we always read and hear one of the stories of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain, witnessed by Peter, James and John. We’ve just heard Mark’s account of Jesus' transfiguration.

The focus of this season after the Epiphany is summarized in words from today’s epistle: when our hearts are illuminated with the “knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Epiphany is about the light that enlightens in us the knowledge of the glory of God recognized in the face of Jesus Christ. You’ll hear those words from the epistle this morning in the proper preface for this season of Epiphany.

Epiphany is about recognizing the glory of God in Christ. Recognizing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The transfiguration was the ultimate epiphany experience. There wasn’t any doubt for Peter, James and John on that mountaintop that they were in the presence of the glory of God.

The disciples came face to face with the glory of God.

It happens.

Peter, James and John came face to face with the glory of God. Close enough to touch. It happens.

We don’t know what mountain it was. It could have been any mountain. According to Mark, they were somewhere on the road between Cesarea Philippi and Capernaum. Somewhere between Cesarea Philippi and Capernaum Peter, James and John came face to face with the glory of God. It happens.

We don’t know how it affected them long term. But I think we can be pretty sure they never forgot the experience of coming face to face with the glory of God in the midst of their lives.

It happened in the midst of their lives, before their deaths, obviously. Unexpectedly, on no particular day. Peter, James and John came face to face with the glory of God.

Today’s collect reminds us that it also happened before Jesus’ passion and death. This is a part of life, human life, encountering the presence of the glory of God. Luke’s Gospel states that after the transfiguration, Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem. After the transfiguration, he was clearly on his final journey. But in all three synoptic Gospels, Jesus is clearly in his final journey at the time of the transfiguration... The difficult journey towards betrayal and death.

Although we hear this story before Lent, we might better hear it actually during Lent. On some random Monday in the midst of Lent’s bare struggle, to be reminded that it is the midst of that journey that people like us come face to face with the glory of God.

It happens!

For Peter it happened between his confession of Jesus as Messiah and his later betrayal. Between wonder and fear. Between certainty and doubt. Between revelation and darkness. In that in-between place where we all live. The experience of the transfiguration certainly didn’t depend upon the status of Peter’s faith. Still he saw God’s glory face to face.

It happens

For James and John… According to Mark, they had recently experienced the feeding of the four thousand, after the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus’ teaching and healing took place before and after the transfiguration. But they are still confused. They don’t know who Jesus is, or what he is doing. But in the midst of their confusion, they come face to face with the glory of God.

It happens.

In the midst of human lives, it happens. Somewhere in between certainty and doubt. Between wonder and skepticism. Between clarity and confusion.

We come face to face with the glory of God.

Somewhere in between the happy routine of taking the kids to soccer and the bombshell of a scary medical diagnosis.

In between breakfast and lunch.

Somewhere in between Chicago and Milwaukee (although there aren’t many mountaintops on that road); somewhere between Markham and Homewood.

It happens. We come face to face with the glory of God.

In the middle of Lent’s penitence, or in the midst of Christmas Eve’s hope. Somewhere in the midst of our ordinary human lives.

It happens.

We come face to face with the glory of God. With us. In our lives.

It happens anywhere, anytime. Without any qualifications on who we are or the quality of our faith.

But there does seem to be one qualification… These experiences of coming face to face with the glory of God seem to happen more often on mountaintops. Just a brief moment when we get above it all… When we pause just long enough to look up… When we focus long enough on Jesus to follow him just a few steps off the beaten path, away from the daily grind, up the mountainside. And in that moment, when we pause to look up, when we rise above it all, when we step aside to follow Jesus…

...we come face to face with the glory of God. It happens.

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany - February 8

Planting Milkweed:  Vocations, Great and Small
Mark 1:29-39
(Once again I am much indebted to David Lose’s commentary on this week’s Gospel.) 

The Gospel for this Sunday follows directly from the passage we heard last week (at least those of us who were here in the blizzard!) In Mark’s Gospel these are the initial events in Jesus’ public ministry. In last week’s passage Jesus publicly healed a man who was possessed (however you want to interpret possession). The man was there in the synagogue in Capernaum with Jesus and his disciples. In today’s passage Jesus privately heals a woman of a clear physical disease, a fever. So right at the beginning we see the breadth of Jesus’ healing ministry.

Modern readers and hearers of this passage can’t help but notice, though, that bam! the very first thing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law does the instant the fever leaves her is to get up and serve the others! And we bring a lot of personal perspective, we might say baggage, to the interpretation of that part of the story. Nonetheless, I think it’s a good part to look at. To consider the result of Jesus’ healing. The story isn’t just about the physical healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, but also the impact or consequences of that healing.

One commentator (Sarah Henrich HERE) puts this passage into the social and cultural context of the time, the time in which it took place:

[I]llness bore a heavy social cost: not only would a person be unable to earn a living or contribute to the well-being of a household, but their ability to take their proper role in the community, to be honored as a valuable member of a household, town, or village, would be taken from them. Peter’s mother-in-law is an excellent case in point. It was her calling and her honor to show hospitality to guests in her home. Cut off from that role by an illness cut her off from doing that which integrated her into her world. Who was she when no longer able to engage in her calling? Jesus restored her to her social world and brought her back to a life of value by freeing her from that fever. It is very important to see that healing is about restoration to community and restoration of a calling, a role as well as restoration to life. For life without community and calling is bleak indeed. 

I would certainly agree that life without community is bleak and that Jesus restored Peter’s mother-in-law to her community. But my message today focuses on her calling. Her calling. Her vocation. She was restored to her vocation. In today’s collect we pray to be set free from every bond… so that we may have the abundant life that is God’s hope for us. A big part of abundant life, I think, is pursuing our calling. Living into our vocations.

It occurs to me that we can only talk about vocation because of the incarnation. It is only because God’s Son became human that we can talk about human beings sharing in the divine vocation. It is only because God brought holiness into human being that we can talk about our human lives, our actions, having the potential to be holy vocations.

The work or tasks of our lives can be useful, meaningful, even rewarding without being holy, without fulfilling our vocation. Holiness is one of those things that’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it, when you experience it. And when we are fulfilling our vocations we are sharing in the holiness of God’s life and purpose. We are being the hands and voice and presence of Christ.

I quote Buechner from time to time. He is particularly quotable on the subject of vocation. This is the entry on vocation from Wishful Thinking:

[Vocation] comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a [person] is called to by God. 

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest.

By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your patients much either. 

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. 

Vocation is where your gladness and the world’s hunger meet. Where what gives you joy meets the needs of others.

As you may know the Church used to talk about “a vocation” as a call to ordained ministry (or perhaps the monastic life). You either had “it” or you didn’t. Some people had “a vocation;” most did not.

Thank God we’ve gotten away from that language and perspective. Everyone has vocations. Plural. I think it’s important to think about plural vocations. Each of us doesn’t have just one vocation. We have many. Big vocations and small vocations. Vocations that change with time. It isn’t as though you absolutely have to find your "one true vocation" or else face a life of total desolation. We have many vocations. Your vocation may or may not be how you earn your living. You may have several vocations that are just part of how you earn your living-- or are expressed in other ways.

I think we need to get away from this idea that a vocation must be grand and all-consuming. Think rather in terms of tasks or activities. Those are where we engage our vocations. Plural. Vocations. The tasks or activities where your joy meets another’s need. Where your gladness meets the world’s hunger.  Both parts are important.

For example. Sitting on the sofa listening to music by the CSO brings me great joy. I’m thankful to God for the music and for the capacity for joy, but that’s not really a vocation. On the other hand, musicians from the CSO taking music into juvenile detention centers could be. I hope they feel that as a fulfillment of vocation. Some parts of my job as a priest in the church are vocation; other parts, not so much. Where my gladness and the world’s need meet.

I was recently a guest at a big family gathering welcoming a granddaughter home. I’m thinking of the grandmother who cooked for hours and hours making every single food that the granddaughter likes. Where joy and the need to be welcomed and reconnected with family meet. Vocation close to home.

I’m very excited about a new mini-vocation for me: planting milkweed. Where my gladness and the world’s need meet. The world needs the restoration of milkweed. Monarch butterflies will not survive without it. (You’ll hear more specific details later.)  Vocation.

Think about the tasks or activities that give you joy. Do you or can you offer those to meet the world’s need? How can you give what gives you joy to others? That’s vocation. That’s living the life abundant. Look for ways to connect what makes you glad with the hunger of the world.

And if there is something keeping you from engaging in any vocation, small or large, pray to be freed. Pray to be freed, like Peter’s mother-in-law, from whatever binds you or holds you back from the abundant life of your own calling.

Set us free, O Lord, to live into our vocations.

The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

With Authority
Mark 1:21-28

The Gospel passage appointed for today comes very early in Jesus public ministry. In fact, in Mark’s Gospel this is the first appearance of Jesus after his Baptism and temptation in the wilderness. Two things happen. Jesus and his disciples have come to the synagogue in Capernaum. First, Jesus teaches. And second he casts out an unclean spirit. Whether you think of it as an exorcism or a healing, Jesus brings wholeness to a man who was there.

But we have this reading during Epiphany season not so much to focus on Jesus’ actions, but on the effect of those actions on the bystanders. What was the impact on the people who witnessed Jesus’ actions?

The people recognized an authority in Jesus that was astonishing. And apparently totally unexpected. They saw divine authority in Jesus.

I don’t think Jesus did these things deliberately to prove his authority, but it was an inevitable result. The people around Jesus had epiphanies, literally. When Jesus taught, the people recognized divine authority. Jesus brought God into their lives.

Recently in the adult Sunday School class, the question came up: What miracles would Jesus do if he came back today and wanted to do miracles since so many of the old ones don’t really work anymore? As I reflected a bit on this, I came to think it is the wrong question to ask… for several reasons. First because Jesus didn’t do miracles just to make a statement or to prove his divine status. But more importantly, the question is not what would Jesus do if he were to come again, but what does Jesus do now. What does Jesus do now to bring the presence of God into our lives?

In the synagogue Jesus’ teaching communicated God’s presence and purpose with authority to the people who were there. Jesus’ teaching, Jesus’ words in the Bible, speak with a recognizable authority today. Bringing God’s presence and purpose directly into our individual lives. Or at least the Bible can speak with that sort of personal immediacy. For me, that happens most often reading the Bible at home on my own. If Jesus’ words in Scripture don’t speak directly to you in your life, ask yourself why not? What do you need to do differently about how you read or study the Bible?

Can you imagine what it was like for the people around Jesus to recognize for the first time that Jesus’ bore God’s divine presence? To see the divine Jesus in the human Jesus?

C. S. Lewis reminds us that the greatest miracle is the incarnation. The greatest miracle isn’t a healing or walking on water. It’s the fact that God took on human flesh and came among us. That Jesus’ presence is God’s presence.

 Of course, we might say. Because the Jesus we know is a divine presence. Maybe one of the challenges for us is recognizing that the divine Jesus who is with us today really impacts our individual, human lives just as immediately and profoundly as the Jesus who stood next to them in the synagogue was a part of the peoples’ lives back then.

The brothers of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, a group of Episcopal monks, publish a reflection on a word each day. Brother, give us a word. You can subscribe online. This morning’s word was life. Brother Curtis Almquist writes: “Jesus doesn’t show any interest in people’s spiritual lives. Jesus is interested in people’s lives. Their whole lives: body, mind, and spirit. It’s all one. It’s all meant to be one.”

It isn’t like there is a spiritual Jesus who is a part of our spiritual lives. Jesus brings God’s interest and care into our whole lives.

I will admit I don’t always see it. I’m not constantly aware of God’s presence, God’s care, God’s guidance in the daily activity of my life. After all, if God were really involved every minute of every day, why doesn’t he do more? Fix more of the things I would like to see fixed. I suspect the people in Jesus day may have actually felt much more like we do than we sometimes imagine. After all, Jesus didn’t fix their political situation, either. There were undoubtedly many people whom he didn’t heal.

In today’s collect we affirm that God rules all things in heaven and on earth. And, although I’m not aware of that governance at every instant in my life, I have known it often enough to trust that it is true. To trust that God’s care and presence and guidance do, in fact, rule all things. In the collect we also pray: in our time, grant us your peace. I have known God’s peace in my time.

I have come to trust that Jesus brings God’s presence, care and guidance into our physical, human lives just as surely today as he did in that synagogue in Capernaum so many centuries ago.