The Blessing of the Backpacks

A litany of thanksgiving as a new school year begins.

For our minds and the ability to think and reason;
We thank you, Lord.

For the passion and dedication of all who teach;
We thank you, Lord.

For the gifts of wonder and creativity and the vision to see you, Lord, in things that are new;
We thank you, Lord.

For schools and the opportunity learn;
We thank you, Lord.

For our friends at school, who share the good times and the hard times with us;
We thank you, Lord.

For our families, for their love and support;
We thank you, Lord.

For computers and calculators and all the other tools that help us learn and explore;
We thank you, Lord.

For words and stories and ideas and the chance to share them with others;
We thank you, Lord.

For music and art and drama and joy;
We thank you, Lord.

For games and times of recreation and renewal;
We thank you, Lord.

For all those people who help us learn and all those whom we are able to help;
We thank you, Lord.

For our own unique gifts and talents and the opportunity use them in your service;
We thank you, Lord.

God of power and hope, we pray your blessing upon these backpacks, on the students who carry them and on all students and teachers everywhere. Bless us all in our vocation as learners, in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

A Peculiar Church
Matthew 16:13-20

The passage we heard as this morning’s Gospel is usually referred to as the “Confession of Peter.” Peter witnesses, proclaims, “confesses,” that Jesus is the Son of God. Similar passages appear in Mark and Luke’s Gospels. God reveals to Peter the wonder of Jesus’ identity. It’s a powerful and important passage and remains a strong witness to us today of who Jesus is.

As powerful and important as Peter’s words are as witness and revelation, interpreting Jesus’ words is a bit more problematic. As I work to interpret Jesus’ words I’ve drawn heavily on a commentary on Matthew’s Gospel by Eduard Schweizer that we used in seminary. My focus in particular is on the phrase spoken by Jesus: “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.”

What was Jesus’ vision for the future for his followers? What did Jesus hope to build?

When Jesus says, “on this rock I will build my church,” the Greek word that is translated “church” is ecclesia. It is the root of our contemporary churchy words like ecclesiastical. But there are two very important things to know about that word ecclesia as it is used in the Bible.

One. Although it has now come to be a part of words meaning church, it was not a religious word in Jesus’ day. It was a general, entirely secular word meaning simply “gathering” or “assembly.” It did not mean “church.” Schweizer translates it “community.” It just meant any community of people who were gathered or assembled.

Two. The word is virtually absent from all four Gospels. It appears here and in one other place in Matthew and that’s it. It appears a lot in Paul and the post-Easter letters, but it is not a part of the Gospels. The words and activities of Jesus' life and ministry do not include the word “church.”

Jesus’ proclamation to Peter about being the rock upon which Jesus will build his church does not appear at all in Mark or Luke’s telling of the Confession of Peter. (The Confession itself is not recounted at all in John.) Writing about this particular phrase, Schweizer states: “the saying about the community [or church] is a post-Easter addition, possibly Matthew’s own. In all four Gospels the word “community” appears only here and in 18:17. In the post-Easter epistles and in Acts it appears frequently, but always in the phrase “community of God,” which translates the Old Testament expression “levy of God,” meaning Israel. The New Testament is aware throughout that Jesus, unlike the Qumran community or the Pharisees, does not seek to establish a special community but to call the whole people of God back to their Lord.”

Whether or not Jesus actually said the words proclaiming Peter as the rock upon which the church would be built is a matter of scholarly debate. Schweizer thinks that Jesus did not say these words; that the words were added by a later author. So what can we say about Jesus’ vision?

I think we can say that Jesus had absolutely no idea whatsoever of anything that we might call “church.” Nothing that we might call church was a part of Jesus’ vision… Church as an institution with any sort of organizational and leadership structure, whether that leadership be papal, episcopal or congregational… Church as something with defined membership guidelines… Even church as a group of people ascribing to a particular creed or confession… None of these was a part of Jesus’ vision.

The word “peculiar” shows up in some of our hymns and Rite 1 collects in its archaic sense of “special.” We sang one last week, which is probably why it’s in my head: “Let every creature rise and bring peculiar honors to our King.” “Peculiar” always means particular. It used to mean particularly special, uniquely wonderful. Only in the 17th century did it come to mean particularly odd, uniquely strange.

I’m not sure how far to push this idea, but maybe it’s helpful to think of everything we call church as peculiar. In both senses of the word. Our own special, uniquely wonderful way of knowing and sharing and praising God. But totally strange, odd, unknown to Jesus. Our current churches would be peculiar indeed to Jesus’ vision.

Jesus does not talk about ecclesia or church. The words Jesus uses are words like people and kingdom. Jesus talks about all of God’s people. All of God’s people. And about bringing them to God’s kingdom and bringing God’s kingdom to them. Jesus’ ministry is about making God’s kingdom real for all of God’s people.

To say that Jesus’ did not talk about ecclesia, whether you translate it church or community, is not a license for us to abandon our particular faith communities. That, I think, would be equally incomprehensible to Jesus. There is only the “people” of God; not "a person" of God. There is no singular.

God only knows if there are any limits on how broad the expanse of God’s people is. Only God knows.
But the people of God are a people bound together by God. Bound. United. Held together by God. Not by human choice, but by God. The people of God are not just individuals, each cared for by God; they are a people… a people bound to one another by God. Not by our choice, but by God's power.

The absolutely greatest differentiation we might imagine amongst us is trivial compared to what binds us one to another. The link is forged by God’s desire and by God’s power. It is literally infinitely stronger than anything on earth.

I am bound to people of God whom I do not know by the power of God.  People I do not know, do not understand, maybe don’t even like… the bond uniting us is full of God’s power.

That turns the world upside down.

Whether the words in Matthew’s Gospel about Peter and the church are Jesus’ own or a post-Easter addition is an issue debated among scholars. The collect appointed for this day is definitely post-Easter, appearing first in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. “Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name.” It is the Holy Spirit’s presence and power that gathers, unites the people of God. It is God’s spirit, love and power that gathers us into unity. Not us. The Holy Spirit. That gathers the people of God into unity. And then we pray that we may, by how we live and serve as God’s people, show forth God’s power to the world. That we, by our words and actions, may proclaim God’s power to gather and unite. That’s the particular power this collect is talking about—God’s power to gather and unite. We pray that even this peculiar church may be a witness to the world of God’s power to gather and unify.

The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

What if God Doesn't Like Me? 

Matthew 15:10-28

The story we just heard in the second part of today’s appointed Gospel reading is a challenging one. Jesus and the Canaanite woman. What could God be saying to us today in the words of this story? How are we to interpret this passage?

To begin, we should remember that in Jesus’ day, the Hebrew people knew the Canaanites as foreigners and pagans. They were foreigners and they did not worship the one, true God. In the perception of the Jews, the Canaanites were the very people whom God had displaced when God brought the Jews into the promised land.

In addition to being a foreigner and a pagan, she was a woman. She didn’t count. No census of the day would have counted her  among the living. In this story she doesn’t even have a name. No identity worth noticing.

When she comes before Jesus with her intercession, Jesus first ignores her completely. Then Jesus more or less says, “I did not come for such as you.” Then Jesus says, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” You are no more than an animal to me. Jesus says.

One tempting way to try to interpret this story is to focus in on just single facets of the story. There is the woman’s persistence and courage. That persistence and courage ultimately pay off. That’s a good message and one that Jesus himself makes elsewhere. Persist in prayer; persist in intercession. The woman’s persistence can be an encouraging model to us.

If we look at the passage as a whole, however, we cannot avoid Jesus’ words. Jesus’ hurtful, hateful words. Jesus’ name-calling that defines this woman as literally subhuman.

I suppose these words of Jesus could be used by some people as justification for their own desire to label some other people as subhuman. After all, if Jesus calls pagans dogs, if Jesus calls women dogs, if Jesus calls foreigners dogs…. Well then I ought to be able to call people whatever I want to. Some people might use Jesus’ words to justify their frustration with the demand to use “politically correct” language. Or even worse, some people might use Jesus’ words to justify their hatred of others who differ from them. If anyone is even remotely tempted by this argument, bear in mind that Jesus does not ultimately destroy the Canaanite woman, or cast her away or even “correct” her perceived shortcomings—he helps her.

Other people (and I would put myself in this category) might be tempted to just chuck out this whole particular passage from Matthew’s Gospel. This passage can’t be as important as the other ones that I like better.

In past years (and this Gospel comes around every three years) one of the sermons I’ve preached focuses on the human Jesus. Maybe the human Jesus, conditioned by his own human experience and the social setting of his day, could have spoken those words, but thank God the divine Jesus won out in the end! That’s a spin on the passage that can teach us something, but it’s really pretty bad theology. The two natures of Jesus—human and divine—are not that separate. The human and divine Jesus don’t settle issues by debate or arm wrestling. There is one Jesus. The divine Jesus spoke these difficult words as fully as the human Jesus did.

One on-line sermon I found skirted the issue very creatively, focusing on the disciples' impatience with the woman’s shouting on behalf of her daughter. Jesus’ message, then, in helping the woman, is to affirm that it is OK to get overly emotional where your children are involved.

I’ve said all this up to this point to point out—again!—the complexity of Biblical interpretation, if we take it seriously. If we take Biblical interpretation seriously it is complicated and difficult work.

Here’s how this passage speaks to me this year.

The context is real. We can’t narrow our focus so much that we lose the context of Jews and Canaanites… the “us” versus “them” animosity between Canaanites and Jews. I don’t know if Jesus actually said the words calling this woman a “dog.” It’s hard for me to imagine that he did, but I can’t know for sure. I can’t know for sure. It is ironic, though, to say the least, that just a few lines earlier in this Gospel passage, Jesus himself says that “what comes out of the mouth defiles…” The words that come out of a human mouth defile the speaker when those words express “evil intentions or slander.” Jesus’ words about the Canaanite woman seem slanderous. So either he didn’t say both parts of this passage, or he proclaims himself defiled…

We cannot be absolutely certain what specific words he said. But I think we can be pretty confident that most of the Jews of Jesus’ day would have seen the Canaanite woman as no more than an animal. They would have dismissed her out of hand. Jesus’ disciples would have seen her that way… the writer of Matthew would have seen her that way… and she, herself, would have seen herself that way. That’s what grabs my attention. She would have seen herself as contemptible, of no account, in the eyes of Jesus. Just because of who she was. As a Canaanite woman, she had every expectation that Jesus would dismiss her, dislike her.

Do you think Jesus likes you? We always make these sweeping statements about God’s limitless love, but do you think that Jesus likes...  you? Would like to spend time with you, on a human level? Likes you for who you are?

You’ve been taught, I hope, that God loves you unconditionally (and therefore will forgive you when you sin). But, beyond this theological affirmation, do you feel like Jesus likes you? Do you think Jesus has any reason to care for you in particular? Most of us want to feel liked. It’s distressing to feel disliked. We work to be liked. Do you think Jesus likes who you are?

God acts with healing and hope regardless. Regardless of what you think God thinks of you, God acts with healing and hope in your life.

These are two things we know from this story: The Canaanite woman saw herself as contemptible in Jesus' eyes. Jesus healed her daughter.

It isn’t about what we think God thinks of us. Even if and when you think of yourself as unlikeable in God’s eyes, God will act with hope and healing in your life. Even when you see yourself as beneath God’s notice, God acts with hope and healing. Even if you feel contemptible before God, God acts with hope and healing.

One final word… It’s also important to remember that those "other" people whom you think that God couldn’t possibly like, for whatever reason… God acts with hope and healing in their lives, too.

The Second Sunday in Lent

John 3:16
John 3:1-17

The Episcopal Café is an online resource offered by the Episcopal Diocese of Washington containing all sorts of information and reflections pertaining to the Episcopal Church. An interesting post appeared there this week. It was entitled, “Is Japan asking for your financial assistance?” Is Japan asking for your financial assistance?

The post began:

We see the images from Japan of the three-fold catastrophe and wonder how we can help. The Japanese government has not called for foreign relief aid except in specific cases. Japan is a wealthy country and largely able to respond to natural disasters itself….

The whole issue of “asking” for assistance in times of disaster isn’t one I had thought about before. America, too, is a “wealthy country.” I didn’t have time to really research our own nation’s practice. The fact that I don’t know if we have ever asked for outside assistance suggests that, if we have, we certainly haven’t made a fuss about it. I did discover that the U.S. evidently quietly asked the European Union for some very specific sorts of aid at the time of Katrina. I imagine that, like Japan, we are not in the general habit of publicizing a need or desire for foreign aid.

I have tried to think of reasons why an individual or a country would not ask for aid in times of need. I can’t think of any good reason. There’s pride. “I can take care of myself. I don’t need anyone else’s help.” Then there’s what, for lack of a better term, I’ll call bigotry. “I’d rather die than accept help from the likes of you.”

I also saw a headline sometime this week. The gist of it was… “Reasons why the nation of Japan will recover.” And, of course, the nation will recover. Thousands upon thousands of individuals will not.
The bottom line for us as Christians is simple. Whenever we are aware of a need, we must help. It is the mandate of our baptismal covenant. It is about who we are. Whether we are asked or not is irrelevant. We must offer what help we can.

The post at Episcopal Café continued:

Beyond [these considerations of whether the government has asked], there we are in the position of having ties within Japan. Through the Anglican Communion and companion dioceses relationships, there are bonds between the Episcopal Church and Anglican Episcopal Church in Japan. The church in Japan has asked for help. We asked Brian Sellers-Petersen of Episcopal Relief and Development for background on how giving to ER-D will make a difference in Japan.

"As you know, our primary partner in a disaster of this kind is always the local church, and here we are working in solidarity with the Anglican Episcopal Church in Japan - the Nippon Sei Ko Kai (NSKK). While they are still in the throes of reviewing how clergy and congregations are impacted by the disaster, and struggling with communications in the coastal areas closest to the quake and tsunami, they have indicated they are conducting needs assessments involving survivors in communities that surround their churches.

Our program team is in contact with NSKK. We know that survivors will turn to the Church for both short-term and long-term assistance (particularly in the coming days and weeks as resources are exhausted through other avenues).

As representatives of sister churches, we work in a different manner than [many other charitable organizations]. Just as we were grateful during Hurricane Katrina, when the NSKK supported recovery efforts in the impacted dioceses of the Gulf Coast, through Episcopal Relief & Development, we know that they are deeply grateful for all of our help during this time. The resources of the Japanese people are extensive, but still the people to people contacts that we embody will help the local Anglican Church as it reaches out to the vulnerable in its communities."

ER-D is one way to help. It is not the only way. But we must help.

This morning’s Gospel is relevant. As I was reading the Gospel I thought at I might see fireworks set off, or bright lights begin to flash or spirited “Amen’s” arise from the congregation… when I got to John 3:16. But, no.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
 
We see John 3:16 held up on placards at football games and other public events. I suppose it is meant to be a form of evangelism, although I don’t really see how a citation of chapter and verse on a poster held up by a stranger would bring someone who is unchurched and unfamiliar with the Bible any closer to Jesus.

Considering the importance this verse has for many people I looked it up in Raymond Brown’s two volume commentary on the Gospel of John. Again, I was a little disappointed not to find any particularly enthusiastic emphasis placed on this one verse. In fact, there seems to be some discussion among Biblical scholars whether or not Jesus even said these words or whether they are part of a homily by the Evangelist (our St. John) placed on the lips of Jesus.

In his commentary, Brown focuses on one word, “loved.” “God so loved the world…” Brown writes: “The aorist implies a supreme act of love…” The aorist is a verb tense we don’t have in English. It is a past tense always implying an event or action, something that happened. God’s love wasn’t a feeling, it was an action. Brown continues, “The verb here is agapan; and if Spicq is right, we have a perfect example of agapan expressing itself in action. Agapan. We know the word “agape.” God’s love, expressed in action. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”

God didn’t wait to be asked. God saw the need throughout the world that all human kind had for God to share, redeem and restore our human nature. So God sent his Son. God responded to our need. No one in Jesus’ day was asking for a Savior. The Jews anticipated the coming of the Messiah, but they were not asking for what they got in Jesus. As for the pagan Gentiles of the day, if anyone had asked them if they needed the Hebrew God to send Immanuel to them, they would have said, “Good God, NO! We certainly don’t need anything from that God.”

But God saw the world’s need, our need, and loved Jesus into the world.

It seems to me the best way to live into the spirit of John 3:16 is not so much to hold up placards in public places. We should act in ways that meet the needs of others. We should bring God’s agape into the world by our actions.

As Christians only two things are important. Need and agape. Need is around us. We can supply agape.

The questions that should persistently be on the lips of all Christians is “How can I help?” How can I help? Not, can I afford the time or resources to help. Not, have they asked for my help or do they want my help. Just simply, how can I help. How can I meet another’s need? How can I make God’s love real in the lives of others?

We should ask ourselves this question not just with respect to Japan, although the need there is profound right now. Wherever there are human beings, there is need: spiritual need, physical need, emotional need. Harkening back to John 3:16, there may be people in our lives who do not know the love of Christ, whose lives are desperate and faithless. We must act in response to that need with evangelism, by somehow sharing the Good News.

There is need within the parish. Think about your immediate neighborhood or local community. Even within our mighty, self-sufficient nation, there is need. And, sadly, Japan is not the only area world-wide where human beings are in grave physical need. We must act. As Christians, we must act, as best we are able, to help. No individual, of course, can meet the needs of the world. And for some of the need that surrounds us, it is not always clear how best to help. Prayer is always an appropriate response. And when we, in worship, pray for the needs and concerns of the world, we are acting to help. But we must always remember that indifference or inaction are never options for Christians. No matter what the need, indifference or inaction are never options. Whether or not we have been asked to help. Whether or not we know those in need or have any kind of ties with them. Whether or not our help is even welcome. Indifference or inaction are never options.

Wherever there are human beings there is always need. And, to God’s glory, there is always agape. And it is always our job to put agape into action.

The First Sunday in Lent

The Wilderness
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
Matthew 4:1-11

One of the predominant themes of this First Sunday in Lent is wilderness. The Old Testament reading from Genesis tells at least most of the story of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from paradise into the wilderness. And the Gospel reading is about Jesus’ time in the wilderness.

You know the story from Genesis. From my perspective it is not meant to be about who is to blame, nor is the primary focus on exactly what he or she did wrong. Rather, the story illustrates a fact of human existence. Its meaning is to illuminate something that is uniformly true about human beings, especially with respect to our relationship with God. Note that in this story no human being lived and died in paradise. No human being, male or female, lived his or her entire life in paradise. Throughout the Biblical witness we do not have any examples of people who avoided life outside of paradise—life in the wilderness. We all live in the wilderness. We all live our whole lives in the wilderness.

I’ve mentioned before what a rich teaching resource the seasons of the church year are. Each in its turn enables us to explore and experience a different facet of our life of faith. But it’s also important to remember that, although we experience the seasons in sequence, one after another, they are, in fact, cumulative. They are all true simultaneously. The season of Lent brings the wilderness. But we actually dwell in the wilderness of Lent all of the time—every day of our lives.

It’s very important to specify what this particular wilderness is and what it is not. The story from Genesis helps us. The wilderness of Lent is a place where we have the knowledge of good and evil. We know that there is good and there is evil and we affirm that they are profoundly different. And yet, we are not consistently able to choose the good. We know that good and evil are monumentally different and yet we cannot, or do not, or will not do what is good. That is the wilderness of our daily existence.

The Litany of Penitence which we said on Ash Wednesday reminds us of our failure to choose the good. In the litany we confess “the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives… our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people… our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work.” Simple, everyday dishonesty. Then there is “our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us… our indifference to injustice and cruelty… uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors… our waste and pollution of [God’s] creation, and lack of concern for those who come after us.” These failures are a part of every human life. They vary in magnitude, and perhaps you would be reluctant to call them “evil.” But they are. They are all failures to choose the good. They are all evil in God’s sight.

The wilderness of Lent is a place where we understand and acknowledge a profound difference between good and evil, between what is godly and what is not, and yet we are unable to consistently choose the good.

The wilderness is a place of intense moral and spiritual tension and struggle. This particular wilderness is not a place where the physical aspects of life are hard. Nor is it a place of natural disaster and calamity. The wilderness of Lent is a place of moral and spiritual struggle. It is not a place of earthquakes and tsunamis. I’ve said before: God doesn’t cause earthquakes; human sin doesn’t cause earthquakes. Plate tectonics causes earthquakes. Plate tectonics are not a part of the wilderness of Lent. But it is a part of the wilderness when we understand plate tectonics, but human greed or ambition or indifference continues to build cities in areas of high risk with only minimal standards. And I’m think more now of the US than Japan. And the voracious demand for energy of all of the developed countries is a part of the wilderness. Our ungodly refusal to temper that voracious demand places many at grave risk.

Nor is the wilderness of Lent the true wilderness of the American frontier, for example, or other areas in the world today where the physical aspects of life are hard. Where disease or economic conditions make life trying. Not to diminish those struggles at all…. But the wilderness of Lent is a place of moral and spiritual struggle. A place where good and evil lie before us and we struggle and fail to choose the good.

We have a tendency to try to escape or deny the wilderness of our lives. We seek to escape by falsely persuading ourselves that we really can make the right decisions. We delude ourselves with the belief that if we really try we can consistently choose the good.   Just a few weeks ago in the epistle reading none other than St. Paul came pretty close to claiming moral perfection. He maintained that he wasn’t really aware of anything that could be held against him. But even he backed down and acknowledged that God might know better (The Eighth Sunday after the Epiphany; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5). It is either delusion or pride to maintain that we can escape the wilderness of Lent by our own strength or will. That we can make always right decision and thereby escape the tension and struggle of the wilderness.

The only other way out of the wilderness would be to renounce our baptisms. To deny that there is any difference between good and evil. Neither good nor evil really exists and we don’t care if there is a difference between them. It doesn’t matter what choices we make. This is to deny the reality of moral struggle and therefore deny the reality of the wilderness. The only way to make that claim is to renounce our identity as Christians.

For Christians, the difference between good and evil is real and profoundly important. And, yet, we are unable on our own to consistently choose the good. Today and the season of Lent are meant to remind us that escape and denial are not options for us. There is no escape from the wilderness for us. We live our lives in a place where the decisions and choices we make are overwhelmingly important, yet we cannot always get it right.

Which leaves us with only God’s mercy and grace.

The church’s invitation to us all to the observance of a Holy Lent culminates with the reminder of “the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.” No exceptions. All Christians. All the time. Need to renew our repentance and faith. Living in the wilderness, our repentance and faith need renewing all of the time.

And Jesus is in the wilderness with us offering renewal and reconciliation. Remember Jesus was in the wilderness, too. It is not a Godless place. God’s own being, God’s own grace and beauty and creative power can be found in the wilderness. Jesus is here. Seek him here in the wilderness. He offers the renewal that we need.

We live in the wilderness of Lent. A place where we know good, but often do evil. As Lent proceeds we will be reminded that it was in the wilderness that Jesus was crucified. But it was also in the wilderness that he rose again from the dead.

Ash Wednesday

Start from Scratch

Ash Wednesday derives its name, of course, from the important liturgical action we perform as we gather in worship today—the imposition of ashes. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that ashes are an “imposition,” something that is “imposed” upon us rather than eagerly received. Whether we are eager or not, each of us has chosen today to have a cross of ashes imposed upon our forehead.

Why do we do this liturgical action? What do the ashes actually mean to us? For millennia, ashes have been signs of public penance. And in the words of the liturgy for Ash Wednesday we refer to the ashes as “signs of our mortality and penitence.” They are imposed with the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” At least to me, dust implies insignificance. Remember your insignificance.

But it’s ash, not dust, that is used. Ash. Literally, ash is what is left over when something is burned. Ash is the residue of burning. It is what is left over when something has been consumed by fire.

You may be aware, that as people of faith we burn physical or material things that have had a sacred purpose when that purpose is done. Material things which have been used for holy purposes are burned when their usefulness is done. At least when practical, we burn material things that have served a sacred or holy purpose when their usefulness is done. This is true for the vessels and vestments of the church, things that have been blessed and set apart for sacred use. When their use is done, they are burned. The analogy with cremation is direct. The human body is a material thing set apart for a wondrously sacred and holy use, the sustenance of an individual human life. When the body’s sacred use is done, one reverent action we may take is burning.

One way to think about what we are doing when we burn things whose sacred use is done is to imagine that we are liberating the sacred or the holy from the material vessel that bore it. In burning, we are symbolically freeing everything that is holy, offering it back to God. And ash is left over.

Once you’ve liberated all that is holy, ash is what is left over. When everything that is sacred has been burned away and has ascended like incense to fill the vault of heaven, ash is what is left over. Ash. Devoid of form, beauty, function, holiness. With holiness removed, we are but ash. Without the image of God within us, we are no more than ash.

Even when we’re alive, ash is all we are without God.

We remember this, not just at the end of life, but at the beginning of Lent. Think of Ash Wednesday as a day to start life from scratch. In a few moments I will invite you, in the name of the church, to the observance of a holy Lent. Maybe we could all think of Lent as a time when we invite God to renew holiness within us. The disciplines of Lent are invitations to God to work within us. In Lent we invite God to do what we cannot do for ourselves, to recreate God’s image within us, to rebuild the sacred within us. Starting from scratch. Evidently to start from scratch was originally an athletic metaphor. It meant to start from the very beginning, the starting line scratched in the earth, without any sort of head start or advantage. To start from the very beginning with no advantage. We are ash. And to restore beauty, form and grace we cannot rely upon any of the advantages we cling to in life—our money, our cleverness, our strength, our skill, our intellect. None of those will help us. Only God can recreate us from scratch.

But to start from scratch often also means starting over again after a previous failure. All of our past failures and infirmities, all of our old baggage have also been burned away. We are freed from past burdens as we invite God to work anew in us this Lent. 

Today we are reminded that without the holy image of God within us, we are no more than ash. Through the disciplines of Lent invite God to recreate a clean and beautiful heart within you. This Lent enable God to renew in you a right and righteous spirit. Call upon God to do what only God can do… to start from scratch, from ash, to recreate God’s own image of grace and hope in our lives.

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

God's Rudeness
Matthew 17:1-9

This Sunday, finally, is the Last Sunday after the Epiphany. When Easter is late, as it is this year, we have more Sundays between the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6 and Ash Wednesday. But no matter how many Sundays after the Epiphany show up on the calendar, we always celebrate the Last Sunday after the Epiphany. There are propers—a collect and Scripture readings—designated for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, the last Sunday before Lent begins.

The Gospel reading for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany is always one of the tellings of the story of Jesus’ transfiguration. I hope the story is familiar to you. Jesus takes Peter, James and John with him up a high mountain. And there on the mountain top Jesus’ appearance is transfigured. Whether or not his appearance actually changed is less important than the fact that Peter, James and John saw Jesus in a way they had never seen him before. They truly saw the glory of God shining indescribably from and in and through the person of Jesus.

As familiar as this story is, I heard something new in it this year. As Matthew tells it Peter, well-meaning but misguided as usual, offers to build some sort of booths for Jesus and Moses and Elijah, who have appeared with Jesus. While Peter was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him.” While Peter was still speaking, basically, God interrupted. I was certainly taught that it is bad manners to interrupt someone else. Evidently, God is not always mannerly.

Most of us probably do think it is rude to interrupt someone else; we undoubtedly think it is rude when someone else interrupts us. We don’t like to have our conversations, our plans, or much of anything else interrupted.

Especially as Episcopalians, we don’t like to have our worship interrupted by cell phones or noisy conversations. We don’t like to have the familiar words or structure of worship interrupted by anything new or different. These are all examples of how we dislike interruptions from one another. Sometimes I think we don’t even want our worship interrupted by God.

We prefer control and steady familiarity. Many people have speculated that Peter, at Jesus’ transfiguration, was motivated by a desire to enshrine the experience. To contain it in something controlled and familiar, so that he could revisit the wonder again and again at times and occasions of his choosing.

I enjoy going to the Art Institute. Some of the traveling or temporary exhibitions are spectacular. But I also have a few favorite paintings, a few favorite spots I return to again and again. They are familiar and I know that they will always bring enjoyment. I’m so glad the Chagall windows and the armory are both back! Although neither are as well situated as they used to be. We often approach God the same way. Returning again and again to familiar places. This is OK. Institutional religion is built around the power of these common and familiar experiences. And part of what religion assures us of is that God will be found again and again in the places where we have found God before. Part of the promise of our life together as a faith community is that we will always find God, for example, in the Sacraments.

But the familiar should never be the limit of our expectations of God.

The voice that says, “This is my Son… right here, right now in front of you… THIS IS MY SON... Listen to him…” That voice will always be an interruption.

God is rude. If you remember nothing else, remember that. God is rude. God interrupts our lives, our plans, our conversations. God rudely interrupts. How ready and willing are you to be interrupted?

I think this is one of the messages of the transfiguration. Maybe not the most important message, but a message. God is rude. And if you want to hear the voice that says, “This is my Son,” then you’d better expect to be interrupted. In whatever you are doing, whether you’re at home, or work, or even in church. The voice that says, “This is my Son” always comes as an interruption. The living God always interrupts our lives. But in that interruption we will see things we’ve never seen before, hear things we’ve never heard before, know and understand God in ways more deeply and fully than we ever have before.

Lent, at its best, primes us to be interrupted. We deliberately choose to interrupt what is normal with some sort of special discipline. We open little chinks in our daily lives, where perhaps we will be more tolerant of God’s interruptions. In today’s collect, we pray that, by God’s grace, we may be changed more and more into Jesus’ own likeness, that we may take on more and more of God’s glory in our own lives. It is a remarkable hope and prayer for our own transfiguration. Which can only take place with some pretty significant interruptions from God.