Being vs. Becoming

What's the difference in being and becoming? For instance, what's the difference in being an electrician and becoming an electrician? With 'being,' you're already there; you already are. With 'becoming,' you're headed that way, and when you get there, you will be something new.
Being is static, unchanging; becoming is moving toward something.
Jesus was God, and he became a person.
We are people, and Jesus has given us the ability to become children of God.
Jesus moved toward us and reached us; once he got here, he began helping us move toward God.

Popeye

Let's consider Popeye for a minute. You know, Popeye the Sailorman... What is his philosophy of existence?

I yam what I yam

Popeye and God think of themselves in a similar way. Moses once asked God what his name was, and God said,

I AM WHO I AM.

Verbs in Hebrew are different than in English. In English, we're very concerned with when something happened (past, present, future); Hebrew is more interested in whether the action is finished or not. So "I am who I am" could be translated "I will be who I will be" or some other combination of tenses that imply continuing action. God's name may also mean "I am who I have been" "I am who I will be" "I will be who I have been" "I will be who I am"
In the Middle Ages, philosophers and theologians got very interested in the idea of perfection and whether God changes. For the most part, they decided that, if God is perfect, God can't change. So, they figured that God always has been who God always will be. You can't improve on perfection.
But we're not God, although it's unclear whether we know that, from the way people talk about themselves. "It's hard to improve on perfection" – I've seen that on T-shirts and truck windows. Actually, such a statement is ridiculous. Really? You're just like God? For us to wave off a call to change, for us to say 'Hey, I am what I am' is not even close to a valid comparison.
We can change; we need to change.
Instead of "I am what I am," it's much more appropriate for us to say
"I'm not who I wanna be and
I'm not who I'm gonna be,
but, thank God, I'm not who I was."

Hamlet

Let's change characters. When you hear 'Hamlet' what's the first thing you think of? Give me a line.

To be or not to be: that is the question...

This is another angle from which to consider being.
Hamlet is definitely emo; but he's the star of a tragedy, so... And this is his darkly-shining moment – wrestling internally to figure his way forward in an exquisite, impossible situation. He only sees two options – to be or not to be. Both bad choices – to continue as he is and suffer or to end his life, not knowing what waits on the other side of death.
But just because he only sees two options doesn't mean there only ARE two options. His problem is a lack of imagination. He can imagine only being like he is (which doesn't take any imagination at all, since he is like he is) or not being. And actually, he can't imagine not being, which scares him, so he decides to stick being as he is, even though he doesn't like it.
One of the many angles he doesn't consider is whether he or his situation, or anyone else in it, might change.
God is in the business of transformation. You are what you are, but this doesn't have to determine who you become. You have already changed in countless ways to become someone neither you nor anyone else could imagine when you first began to be.

Human 'Beans'

When your parents discovered they were going to have a baby, you were probably about the size of a bean.

Who were you then?

Who have you become?

Who was Jesus when he was the size of a bean, growing in Mary's womb?
Who did he become?

Remember the difference in being and becoming?
'Being,' you are. 'Becoming,' you're getting there, and when you get there, you will be something new. Because of Jesus, who we are doesn't have to determine who we become. With his help, we can become something new.

Amen.

Judgment Day: Christmas, Part 2

When he shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, [may we] without shame or fear rejoice to behold his appearing. Amen.
"one will be taken and one will be left"
Taken… When we hear it relating to people, it has scary associations. Like Elizabeth Smart taken from her home at knifepoint… the movie Taken with Liam Neeson where his daughter is kidnapped by human traffickers. Sometimes we talk about people being 'taken from us' by disease, drugs, accidents, mental illness....
When we hear that two will be in a field and one will be taken and the other left – what does being taken mean? What do you imagine?
Two folks standing out there in the garden, pulling radishes, and suddenly one shoots up into the stratosphere, and the other left standing, staring at the sky?
One interpretation of this passage, made famous in the Left Behind series, imagines it somewhat like this – just on a larger scale, like a cosmic evacuation on the eve of a military strike. God, with a handful of rescue ropes tied to his most valuable assets, yanks them up and out of there right before he pushes the big red button.
In this view, to be taken is to be rescued out of the world by God while others are abandoned, left to die with the enemy.
What kind of Good News is that? Not very. It offers salvation only to folks who are on the right side and important enough to rescue. It's a cosmic Halo mission, and you may or may not make it to the chopper to get out before the bombs start falling. It's a gospel that believes the world is doomed to destruction. A gospel that sees God as a powerful and highly unstable leader who may at any moment decide to nuke the whole planet. It's a gospel driven by fear: fear of the enemy, however you would like to define them, but mostly fear of God, because he may go postal and blow you up with everybody else if you don't figure out how to become necessary.
In our culture, everything is charged with fear these days. Everything around us is telling us how to prepare for hurricanes, for floods, for being charged by a bear, for surviving a broken elevator chain, for escaping from a psychopathic serial killer. Buy a security system, a gun, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher – I mean, you never know. Try to secure your position at work so you don't get axed, watch what you say. In relationships, you can't trust anyone; never let down your guard. It's not paranoia if they really are after you. The Left Behind gospel plays right into those fears.
But is this the kind of message Matthew's intends when he says keep awake - you don't know when the Lord is coming… he'll be like a burglar? Should we sit up all night on the couch with a .45? What if he opens the door – shoot him?
That's one of the problems with bad theology. It leads you to conclusions that don't make any sense with the rest of the story.
Let's try another way to read this passage, especially the part about some being taken and others left. What about that word left? Does it mean rejected/abandoned? As in one will be accepted and the other rejected? Just because we have a word pair doesn't mean they're opposites, like good/bad, yes/no, hot/cold; some word pairs are simply related things: parent/child, today/tomorrow, call/response.
Here's one way we use taken/left that doesn't mean accept/reject. We were picking some radishes out of the garden a couple weeks ago. Some we took; others we left. We didn't reject them; they weren't bad. They just weren't ready yet, so we left them a while longer. I don't know if that's a justifiable interpretation here, but I think it's worth considering. At least it makes more sense to me with the rest of the gospel.
And what about taken. What are some other ways we can use it – other than to mean stolen, kidnapped or killed, as in 'he took my wallet' 'that lunatic took our daughter,' 'leukemia took my mom.' What about "receive" or "accept" as in 'take a compliment' 'take a call' 'take help that's offered.'
If you offer someone a compliment, don't you want them to accept it? If you give someone a call, don't you want them to answer? If you give someone a gift, don't you want them to take it? What if that's an accurate way to understand "one will be taken"? One will be accepted, received by God; one person's life as a gift, which God takes. "Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee..."
Christmas will be coming up a few weeks from now; this period of Advent is preparing for it. We're not waiting for Jesus to come, though. We're waiting for him to come back. We say it all the time: "Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again" "We remember his death; we proclaim his resurrection; we await his coming in glory." Advent is actually preparation for Judgment Day – Christmas, part 2. We're not primarily reenacting a period of waiting for Jesus to be born, to pretend like it's happening again. We're preparing for what happens next.
Think of Christmas morning as a day of judgment – it's a moment of truth… All the things that have been hidden under wrapping paper are finally opened and everybody sees what was given.
Now think of Judgment Day like Christmas morning, when God takes and opens the gifts we've offered. That's what Advent is about, working on the gift you're preparing for God. Your life - or what you trade it for - will be your gift, the reciprocal part of the exchange. At Christmas, we opened the gift God gave us. On Judgment Day, he'll open the ones we give him.
When he shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, [may we] without shame or fear rejoice to behold his appearing.
Amen

Seeds

Lectionary Readings: Lamentations 1:1-6; Lam. 3:19-26;  2 Timothy 1:1-14;  Luke 17:5-10

How great is your faithfulness, O God! Amen.
Lord, increase our faith!
We don't know what we're doing. We need more people. We can't start yet - we're not ready. We need more information. We need more training, more experience, more money, more time...  Enough already!

That's what Jesus tells his disciples – you have enough already.
They say, "Give us more faith" – he says, "You've got all the faith you need – if you have this much, you've got more than enough" How much? The size of a mustard seed.

They're not very big, are they? Seeds themselves are not much to look at – small, nondescript, kind of dead-looking. You can't tell what a seed is going to grow into until you've had some experience. So unless you've seen that kind of seed before, you can't tell by looking at the outside what kind of plant it will become – and you can't tell by cutting it in half to look at the inside, either.

You have to put it in the ground and see what grows.

A lot of things are like seeds.

A baby is like a seed – I got to hold my little cousin Wyatt last week when he was only a few hours old. There's no way to know who he's going to grow up to be – you can't tell by looking; we'll have to wait till he starts growing to even begin to guess.

Faith is like a seed, too – in today's epistle, faith gets passed down in Timothy's family almost like DNA, from his grandmother to his mother to him. Faith gets planted in us at baptism and confirmation and all the sacraments – it's ready to germinate and grow when the conditions are right. Like it says in Timothy, "rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of… hands."

The words of scripture are like seed – sometimes called logos spermatikos – the implanted word. Every time somebody stands up here to read the Word of the Lord, you're peppered with little seeds. When and how they take root depends on lots of factors. If nothing is growing at all, you may need to condition your soil. The seed itself is good; when you create an environment conducive for it to take root, it will.

Experiences are seeds – even hard ones like pain and death. When the church was under so much persecution in the 300s and people were being killed left and right, Augustine wrote that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church – because that's what grew out of the deaths. The gospel also says that when a seed dies and falls to the ground, it grows up to produce 30, 60, a hundred fold return. What looks like the end of something is many times more of a beginning.So I think grief is closely connected to the growth of new and unexpected things. Grief sometimes involves digging up things that haven't been touched in a long while, pulling things out and turning the ground over and over and over, until it looks chewed up and bare – with bits of what used to be growing there poking out all over. This is what it sounds like in Lamentations – things look nothing like they used to

"How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become!"

I don't think grief itself is the seed; I think memories and experiences are. Relationships grow like flowers or trees, and when a person in your life dies, the blooms drop off, and you're left with stickers that poke you when you touch them or velcro things that grab onto you when you walk by, or delicate fluffy things that float away when you breathe on them. Your memories and experiences are like seeds. They're not what they were – but also, you have no idea what they might become.

A lot of things are like seeds.
On the outside, a seed looks dead. And basically, it is until it's put in the ground, but when conditions are right - the ground begins to warm, it receives water, suddenly the skin splits open, a root snakes out and a stem pushes up, unfolding a couple of green leaves

– and it turns out the inside of the seed is hundreds, thousands, millions of times bigger than the outside.

Even after all these centuries, it's still a process we can only describe, not really explain. You probably don't know what kinds of seeds you're carrying around – you can't tell by looking at them. And anyway, as seeds, they probably don't look very impressive, but what's inside is way more than you can guess. You need to put them in the ground. Ecclesiastes (11:6) says,Who plants a seed trusts God – maybe not even very much, but it doesn't take much. Do you still have the seed in your hand? Look at it. That's more than enough faith for God to work in you. Don't ask for more of this, more of that – the faith you have is enough; put something in the ground. You don't have to know what will grow from it, just start planting.

"in the morning sow your seed and at evening do not let your hands be idle; for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good."

I love the story of Gideon; God asks him to save Israel and he says 'Oh I can't, my tribe is the smallest, and my family is the most insignificant of the clan, and I'm the youngest… blah blah blah… I can't do it!' and God says to him, "Go in the strength you have… Am I not sending you?"(Judges 6:14-16) In other words – do you think I'm asking you to do this by yourself? I'm right here.

The writer of Lamentations says to God,

"You are my portion…therefore I hope in you. You are good to those who wait with patience, to every soul that seeks you."

 God is with us, he is more than enough for all we need; he is our portion. He feeds us with his own life. The Eucharist is also like a seed; when you come to receive it today, think of it this way: you are planting the life of Christ in yourself; now wait patiently for it to grow.

And while you're waiting, go in the strength you have, with the faith you have – it's already enough, and plant your own seeds in the world around you.

Amen.

Homework...

Gospel Reading: Luke 14:1,7-14

Not for a place of honor did your Son come among us, O god of the lowly, but to invite to the wedding feast the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame. Let such humility grace our table and lead us to renounce the quest for power and privilege. … Amen.

(From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year C, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.)

It seems there is a common theme lately in sermons to this community. A lot of them seem to be focusing on breaking attachments to money and power and other things that serve as pseudo-security in place of God.

Here is the same topic again today – in Jeremiah, the prophet talks about the people forgetting and turning their back on all God did for them, his continual provision and faithfulness: rescuing them from Egypt, leading them through the wilderness – through a land no one survives in – and bringing them into a land where there is plenty. Instead of remembering that they owe all their current prosperity to God, they start attributing it to themselves and to other gods. Through Jeremiah, God laments, “My people have changed their glory for something that does not profit… they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”

In the Psalm, we hear again God’s promise to take care of his people’s needs, as he has continually done in the past, and his wish that they would accept what he wants to give them.

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and said,
"Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." … O that my people would listen to me.

Hebrews is very straightforward in its advice.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have.

I’m not sure why this keeps being the theme of sermons here. Maybe it’s something this community particularly needs to hear – or maybe it’s just a topic everybody needs to have reiterated. Probably both. Are you aware if it’s sinking in for you?

Money is not security; God is security.
Money is not ultimately of any value; God is of ultimate value.
Money may or may not even get you daily bread; God provides for your every need.

Money is only useful if you can trade it for what you need or want, but if what you need isn’t available, money won’t get it for you, and if the person who has what you need doesn’t want money for it, there again, money is not use. We’ve seen also that money can very easily and very quickly lose value and even become completely worthless. And it’s of no use at all in obtaining things of really great value.

“Will you be my friend? I’ll give you a hundred dollars…”
“Will you drop the charges against me? I’ll give you a hundred dollars…”
“Will you marry me? I’ll give you a hundred dollars…”
“I want to be a senator. I’ll give you a hundred dollars…”
“Can I have an indulgence to erase my sins? I’ll give you a hundred dollars…”

When people try to trade money for these things, it becomes a scandal – money, in these situations, actually reduces the value of what it’s traded for. Inappropriate use of money in these areas fosters disillusionment: with the political system, with the church, with relationships… it cheapens them, it makes them seem untrustworthy. Why? Because these things are based on a higher value than money.

For some things that have really ultimate value, money is not even a scandal, it’s just a joke.

“God, will you let me in? I’ll give you a hundred dollars…”

What does God have to do with money? Does God buy things? He owns the cattle on a thousand hills – he doesn’t need anything from us. It’s the other way around, he gives us everything. What do we have that we have not been given?

But still, it’s habit to hang onto our things, our abilities, our relationships, even our lives, as though they are ours and not God’s. And we try to get more by taking from each other. An outward representation of that is what Jesus saw at a party: people schmoosing and trying to network and make connections to power and wealth to get up the ladder, trying to sit closest to the host of the party, to be seen as more important. Parties are often still like this – you’ve got some folks trying to sit with or talk to certain other folks – the kids who are more popular, the bosses who are more powerful, the stars who are bigger celebrities. At the same time, people are trying to avoid and get away from those they feel are lower than themselves or might somehow pull them down.

But Jesus says we’re not to be like that – from either side. Neither the brown-nosers nor the snobs.

As one commentator, David Lose, noted, Jesus is not just being Miss Manners when he talks to people about how to act at parties – and who to invite. This business about who sits closest to the host is about pecking order, but Jesus says forget the pecking order – it’s the other way around. Don’t try to sit in the highest seat; sit in the lowest. Don’t try to be the king; be everyone’s servant.

And if you’re the one who’s throwing the party, don’t invite people you want to impress, people you think can help you advance your career, your station in life. You scratch their back and they’ll scratch yours. No, don’t do that – that doesn’t earn you any favor with God, because there’s nothing hospitable or generous about it; it’s a calculated investment, but whatever you get back is all the benefit there is to that kind of transaction. It doesn’t win you any points in heaven.

No, if you want to invest in something truly valuable, try to do something to win God’s favor – as Jesus advises. Do something good for someone who can’t do anything for you. Invite people to your party who can’t even bring the bean dip.

Since this money and economy and giving topic seems to keep coming up, possibly it’s something we need to learn better. In school, when a concept is difficult to grasp with just a lecture, the teacher gives you some homework to practice…

I think that’s a good idea to implement in church. Lots of times, people just come to church and listen to the lecture, and I don’t know how much application of the learning takes place afterwards. I guess that’s fine if you’re just auditing, but really, why even audit a course unless you actually want to learn the material?

So, I’m giving a homework assignment. Now, I’m not the teacher; you won’t turn it in to me. Jesus is the teacher; I’m just subbing today. But this is some of the material he left for us to work on.

God, the loving father

10th Sunday after Pentecost
Readings: Hosea 11:1-11,  Psalm 107:1-9,43,  Colossians 3:1-11,  Luke 12:13-21

First of all, regarding today’s Gospel, the point is - our security rests in God – nothing else: not jobs, not retirement accounts, not, as in this passage, barns. Somebody else will get all your stuff when you die anyway, so it’s a waste to spend your whole life collecting it. God is our security, so invest your energy and resources how God directs.

Moving right along, now we’ll take a look at the passage from Hosea. Last week, Fr. John discussed praying to God as our Father. In Hosea, the prophet shows some of God’s view of that relationship – how he responds to his children when they’re giving him grief. He gets angry at them for acting like idiots, but at the same time, he loves them.
Does this dynamic sound familiar to you? Now listen to what Deuteronomy recommends for parents dealing with unruly kids:

If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him….

sound like anything you’ve said about your kids? or your parents or teachers said about you?
Here’s the course of action prescribed:

then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. They shall say to the elders of his town, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’

So what happens?

Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. (Dt 21:18-21)

Wow.

That seems a little severe. It’s hard to imagine a parent demanding the death penalty for their own child. Folks do demand the death penalty for other people’s children, but somehow that seems different…

Saying, “I’d like to wring his little neck!” is one thing, but we don’t condone actually doing it. We’re horrified at news stories reporting that a parent beat or shook a child to death. Sometimes anger can boil up to the point it’s not wise to punish your kid right then – you have to reason with yourself and talk yourself down to deal with the situation more calmly.

This seems to be part of what’s going on in God’s internal conversation. “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?...My heart recoils within me…” He’s angry, but really, he doesn’t want to destroy his people. He starts mentally re-playing memories – bending over them as they took their first lurching steps, hanging onto his fingers – “…it was I who taught Ephraim to walk...”
He thinks about how he took care of them, though they wouldn’t remember it. “I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them… I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.” You probably don’t remember much about when you were a baby – or even when you were two or three years old, but your parents probably do. If you’re a parent, you probably remember a lot of little details about your children when they were small. They were totally helpless, so you had to do everything for them – which they don’t remember at all. But this bonded you to your children in a very powerful way; when you invest so much in a person, when you love them so completely, it’s hard uproot that love, no matter what happens later.

Sometimes, you really have to rely on the strength of that bond to remind yourself that you DO love your kids, because they can do things that may make you doubt it at times. You also have to remind yourself what you believe is right and not simply react according to how you feel at any given moment.

God is in some sense the same way, as Hosea portrays him – his children can make him so furious at times, he wants to beat the snot out of them, but he reminds himself that that’s not the kind of father he is. He thinks about when they were little - scooping them up in his arms and cuddling them to his cheek, and he reminds himself – that is who I am. I am a loving father. I'm not going to destroy them.

So even though his kids are rebellious and stubborn and don’t listen – even though they are “bent on turning away” he doesn’t take hold of them and drag them off to be executed. His choice in this is not based on the actions or behavior of the kids – but based on who HE is as the parent. It’s a difficult thing, I imagine, to not let your kids’ behavior drive your reaction to them. They can probably push your buttons better than anyone else, and it must take a huge effort at times to keep your cool and be deliberate in how you respond. I’ve heard several parents repeat the principle of trying never to discipline their children while they are angry, and this seems like a very wise rule.

There’s a saying attributed to Macarius the Great, one of the desert fathers of early monasticism

If you reprove someone, you yourself get carried away by anger and you are satisfying your own passion; do not lose yourself, therefore, in order to save another. (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers p. 131)

God does not lose himself in his anger at his children. He won’t allow our behavior to dictate his. Who God is as a father is not dependent on how his children are acting at any given moment – and this is a good thing, because we can be sweet one minute and vicious the next. Regardless of the kind of children we are, God has decided the kind of father he will be.

I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

As God’s children, we can rest secure in his decision to love us. This is not to say he won’t get angry and will never punish anyone. He may get mad, but his love is what’s essential, what’s central to any response he makes – that’s who he is, who he chooses to be, and you are not powerful enough to make him forget that, no matter what you do. Keep this in mind when confessing your sins and asking God’s forgiveness. He’s been working to redeem your mistakes even when you were ignoring him – so he’ll certainly be willing to get you back on the right track as soon as you want to go that way.

In the service of Reconciliation, the person seeking forgiveness says, “I have wandered far in a land that is waste.” and then talks about detours and wrong turns they’ve made.

Today’s Psalm talks about people’s similar experience.

Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to an inhabited town; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress; he led them by a straight way, until they reached an inhabited town.

And at the end, the Psalmist says,

Let those who are wise give heed to these things, and consider the steadfast love of the Lord.

Steadfast love is love that stands fast, not moved or changed. God’s love for us is steadfast. So, the point is not perfect children; the point is a loving father.

Amen.

What is freedom for?

Proper 8, Year C  -  Readings

God, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom. Amen

“It was for freedom that Christ has set us free.” We’re about to celebrate our Independence Day. Freedom is central to American cultural identity and one of the highest – if not the highest – value of our nation’s ideology. Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble… free speech, free market economy – we say this is the “land of the free.”

But what is freedom for?

A popular conception of freedom is the idea I should be able to do whatever I want - sometimes with the qualifying idea ‘so long as it doesn’t violate others’ freedom.’
This sometimes degenerates into a bid for freedom from all responsibility…
nobody telling me what I can and can’t do,
nobody hounding me to take care of them,
nobody getting anything out of me
I do what I want and I keep what’s mine.
This is sometimes a major motivating factor for people who become homeless– It’s a form of freedom. This isn’t true so much for the people who become homeless because of crisis events – but it can definitely be true for some people who choose homelessness as a lifestyle.

Is that freedom? Sort of…

The desire to be free from responsibility and free to indulge yourself can lead to big trouble. When you keep indulging your appetites and desires – for food, alcohol, adrenaline rush, love… and you never tell them no, it’s kind of like always indulging your kids – they become more and more demanding and the dynamic of who’s in control starts to shift. At some point, you begin to realize you’re not in control of your appetites anymore; they’re in control of you. When they call, you answer, sometimes without even thinking. You become a slave to your own body, your own mind - and its sicknesses.

This is not freedom. This is not what freedom is for.

Paul says, “You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence…”

This is an important verse for us. Self-indulgence may be about as central to the American ethos these days as freedom. According to Paul, that shows we’re missing the point. Freedom is a gift, and it’s a gift to be used for the benefit of others, not to indulge our own appetites. Currently, our culture is largely centered around consuming things. We eat more, we buy more junk, we do more drugs than anybody else in the world. We’ve sort of started to decide this is not how we want to live, but we’re discovering it’s hard to stop. The genre of sometimes heart-breaking reality TV shows like “The Biggest Loser,” “Hoarders,” and “Intervention” shows how difficult it is for people to start telling themselves ‘No.’

How do you do it? Paul says, “Live by the Spirit… and do not gratify the desires of the flesh…” Then he gives a whole list of things to stop doing and a whole other list of things to start cultivating in your life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

One of the most effective ways to re-orient your exercise of freedom away from self-indulgence is to focus on others. Paul takes this to a pretty shocking level when he says, “do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.” That’s pretty extreme-sounding. “become slaves to one another” Isn’t being a slave the opposite of being free?

It depends. Being enslaved against your will is one thing – an evil thing. But electing to serve is different. In the Old Testament, laws allowed for a Hebrew slave who earned his freedom to choose what he wanted to do with it. One option was to continue serving in the same household. If that’s what he decided, somebody would take an awl and pierce his ear against the doorpost. (Ex21:6) Then, he was identified as a slave who had the option to be free and chose, rather, to stay in service to that household. This is the kind of life Jesus chose for himself. He was free and elected to put himself in our service. He willingly sought the lowest position, becoming a servant to everyone, and he taught us we should do the same.

What is freedom for?

It’s so you can choose who you will serve.

You’re a free person. Free to serve anywhere and anyone you choose – BUT you’re not free not to serve... because even if you serve no one else, you’ll be serving yourself. My recommendation – turn right back around to the one who bought your freedom for you, and serve him. As our prayer book says, in his service is perfect freedom. (BCP p. 57 or 99, Morning Prayer... Collect for Peace)

Being a deacon is teaching me some surprising things about service and obedience. Obedience is a type of freedom. I’m free from a lot of responsibilities. Being a deacon is kind of like being a duke instead of being the king – you get a lot of the benefits without the heavy responsibility. It’s not my responsibility, for instance, to lead St. John’s or to decide things about funding or to answer to the Diocese for our parish’s activities. In a way, this limits my freedom, but in another way, it frees me up to be more effective in the responsibilities I do have.

Before I had accepted this specific role, I was free to worry about a wider range of things in the church – it seemed at the time like a conscientious thing to do. I worried about small local things at St. Mark’s and about things in the Episcopal Church as a whole and in the Anglican communion; I worried about things going on in other denominations and about trends in church attendance across all denominations – in the United States and in Europe. I was quite diligent and far-reaching in my concerns. At one point, I was very concerned to decide which church tradition was most correct, among the Episcopal, Catholic and Orthodox traditions – I was having a particularly tough time with that question and read some books and sought out various people to talk it over with. It seemed it might be impossible to determine conclusively. It was hard to know how to weigh different strong points and failings, and there were bound to be at least a few factors I was unaware of. At some point, though, it suddenly occurred to me… no one had asked me to make that decision. I was, in fact, completely unqualified to do so. It was such a helpful realization – it wasn’t my job! Wow, what a relief! That really freed up my time and mental energy to consider questions much more relevant to me – where am I called to serve?

This is always a good question – if you’ve not asked it, today is a good day. As fair warning, though, the most likely task he’ll set you to is serving others. You were called to freedom… don’t use your freedom as an opportunity for self indulgence but through love become slaves to one another… Love your neighbor as yourself

Our freedom is a gift from God; like all the gifts God has given this community, we shouldn’t just keep them to ourselves. Each of us should use our gifts, and our freedom as Henry Ward Beecher suggested (regarding the gift of one’s intellect) …

not as he uses a lamp in the study, only for his own seeing, but as the lighthouse uses its lamp, that those afar off on the sea may see the shining, and learn their way.

---------

Our father’s God, to thee, author of liberty, to thee we sing;

long may our land be bright with freedom’s holy light;

protect us by thy might, great God our king.


Amen.

Trinity

Readings for Trinity Sunday, Year C          Illustrated bulletin insert


God, you yourself are a community: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; help us to model our life together after your love in the Trinity.

Today is Trinity Sunday – and tomorrow is Memorial Day.
Do you remember what we’re remembering on Memorial Day? Got an email this week from several people with a cartoon by Joe Heller showing a guy in a baseball hat, sunglasses and an apron leaning over his barbecue grill - “Hotdogs, Hamburgers, Bratwurst… Is there anything I forgot?” while in the smoke above the grill, you can see the faces of soldiers who sacrificed their lives, part of a bigger picture that’s obscured when we forget our history.

When we don’t understand or remember the bigger story and what others have given for our sake, we may treat what we’ve received lightly or even throw it away. When we don’t realize our part in the bigger story, the only story that matters is our own, and by itself, it’s very small.

As part of St. John’s, we are part of the Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Communion, and the Church universal from the past and into the future. It’s important to remember the bigger story we’re part of.
For Christians, every Sunday is a Memorial Day – “we remember his death; we proclaim his resurrection…” Everything we do in a Sunday service - every part of the liturgy, every action, every word, every piece of art on the walls, every sound, every taste - is designed to help us remember, to ingrain the story of who we are and who God is into the fabric of our being. Our language resonates with the different tones of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and our understanding of those relationships.

Glory to you, Lord Christ...

Our Father, who art in heaven…thy kingdom come...

Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit…

We believe in one God…

The Trinity forms the basis and model for the community of the Church and for every relationship we participate in: family, church, school, work, city, nation… We learn best from the Trinity how to be part of a community, part of God’s bigger picture.

What is the Trinity? There are many doctrinal formulations and descriptions, many symbols and analogies to try and help people remember this central understanding of our faith in God. Take a look at the insert in your bulletin. The historical documents of our church say that the Trinity is “one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit” (BCP - Catechism, p. 852)“Three Persons, of one substance…” (Articles of Religion, Article I, BCP p. 867)
 If you take a look sometime at the Athanasian creed, it gets very involved.

(More info on the history, etc. of the Athanasian Creed.)

But words don’t really capture the relationship of the members of the Trinity. People have tried with images also. The inside of your insert explains some of this visual symbolic vocabulary.
St. Patrick’s famous shamrock,
the Celtic triquetra knot,
various combinations of circles and triangles, conveying that the Trinity has both “one-ness” and “three-ness.”
You can also combine symbols of the Father, the Son and the Spirit with these to show distinctions among the members.

More complex designs combine words and images show that while the three Persons of the Trinity are all God, they have distinct identities; they are not the same as each other. The Shield of the Trinity is based on the Athanasian Creed - The Trinity window in Trinity Episcopal Church in Galveston is a circular version of the shield diagram.

But symbols can’t capture the identities of the members of the Trinity either. As Sandra Schneiders, a Roman Catholic nun, observed, “God is more than two men and a bird.” The Trinity is more than words or symbols can convey, but symbols can help us focus on important aspects of God’s character. These interlocking circles here on the front of the pulpit, for instance, show that the members of the Trinity are equal, each whole, and each inextricably joined to the others. How could it inform our life together if we understood and lived the truth that we are all equal, whole and inextricably joined to each other and to God?

On the back of your insert is a much more complex and nuanced representation of the Trinity – Rublev’s icon. Here, three people are presented, not just shapes or symbols or words, and we can read from their expressions and gestures something about their relationships.

One thing to notice is all the faces are the same, because all are God. As Jesus said to Philip in last week's Gospel when Philip asked to see the Father… “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (Jn 14:8-9)

The angels are all looking at each other, and their wings overlap each other, showing their close relationship, and their attentiveness to each other. To be in relationship, then, means not only that our lives intersect and overlap at points, but we need to consciously pay attention to each other, to see and hear one another.

The three are seated around a table, with food; their relationship isn’t only talk, but includes hospitality and enjoyment. And there are four sides to the table but only three guests; the open seat is closest to us, and we are invited to join in. So while we love each other and consciously work to sustain our relationships, we should also always look to welcome new members into our community through hospitality.

(Here is one in-depth analysis of the imagery, and here is a reflection on the icon, and another reflection)

Bishop Ian Douglas of Connecticut said,

The Trinitarian God is a God whose very nature is one of relationality, whose very essence is defined by relationship. Our Trinitarian God is thus a God of community, a divine community of love.

The Rev. Joyce Wilkinson commented on this thought that

We can’t be a Christian alone; even our God is a community.

In a different analogy, the relationship of the Trinity was described by St. John of Damascus in the 8th century as a three-person dance (his word was perichoresis), requiring each one to pay close attention to the others in order to move together gracefully. Let’s see them try that in Dancing with the Stars!
Even when you’re paying attention and trying to move together, it can be tricky; imagine if you were to try dancing without paying attention to who you’re dancing with, or even ignoring them… You’re going to step on each other and trip or go opposite ways and maybe yank each other over – any of which will look very un-graceful.

Sometimes, the church is very ungraceful in the way it dances together. But God is not.

The Rev. Joyce and I were talking about the Trinity at Starbucks Thursday night, and afterwards she sent me an email – she had been thinking more about this metaphor of the dance, and she sent me something she read from the Rev. Charles Hoffacker:

The Trinity is unending, joyous dance, yet the wonder is that the circle breaks open,… inviting us in…

Amazingly, God wants us as dance partners, and he doesn’t seem to mind that we are ungraceful, because he loves us. I’m a terrible dancer, though ironically, I love the idea of dancing and would like to learn to do it well, but I always feel nervous about agreeing to dance with someone because I’m worried about being so bad at it and getting embarrassed. But if I trust the person, I can relax and try to follow them, and I end up enjoying the dance. I think it’s like that with God; once we start to trust him and pay attention to where he’s going and try to go with him, we begin to enjoy the dance and worry less whether every step is perfect.

There are different kinds of fear that keep us away from things. One is fear of actual danger. Fr. John talked last week about Pentecost, and how the Holy Spirit is like wind and fire – dangerous and unpredictable. So it’s reasonable to be afraid of allowing the Spirit free reign in your life. It could be dangerous. But then again, there’s courage, and courage is a response to fear when you’re trusting something more certain – and it’s more certain that God loves us. Not that it’s a guarantee nothing scary will happen. It might - God might dip you nearly to the floor – or swing you up over his head – in fact, we ought probably to expect something like that, because he’s kind of crazy sometimes. But the thing is, he won’t drop you.

If the dance metaphor doesn’t work for you, you might also think of this life with the Trinity as cultivating a garden, like in The Shack, where the Holy Spirit is planting and pruning and moving things around in your life. The next 24 weeks, in the long, green growing season after Pentecost, something ought to start sprouting and producing some fruit in you. Don’t be surprised. The Church does its best to make sure the Word gets planted every week (and every day, too).
Then, sometimes when people or events in your life poke holes in your heart, God takes that opportunity to push the seeds further down – and often some manure gets thrown in, too. Take heart...
This is a prime growing environment!
So actually, if something doesn’t grow in you these next few months, that should be the more surprising and concerning thing – and maybe you will want to think about how to rehabilitate your soil...

During this long, green growing season, tend your garden and see what God’s been planting as it starts to come up and bloom.

Amen.

Unity, Constancy and Peace

Readings (3rd Sunday after Easter, Year C)


Lord, remembering the collaboration and the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, may we also serve you in unity and constancy and peace. Amen.

Paul’s conversion

on the road to Damascus

after having persecuted

Jesus’ followers…

Peter’s restoration

after having denied Jesus…

(Peter, do you love me? by ShouYume)

Two major events in the lives of two major figures in the early Church – one was trying to get the likes of the other one killed – and God brought them together to work side by side. What a crazy idea! Inviting a malicious opposition leader into the Church as a teacher, or putting the responsibility of shepherding the vulnerable new Church in the hands of a coward. But that’s what Jesus did – forgive them; they didn’t know what they were doing. But Jesus knew what he was doing.

One way to get rid of an enemy (other than blowing him to smithereens) is to make him a friend. It sounds idiotic and naïve, but that’s basically what Jesus did with Paul. And so the relentless persecutor of Christians became the Church’s most effective missionary. And what about Peter? 'With friends like that, who needs enemies?' But Jesus used Peter, too – the one who bailed and ran became part of the foundation of the Church. I suppose one way to teach people responsibility is to give it to them.

The story of Peter and Paul is also our story - Confrontation, judgment, forgiveness, restoration – and a new life together. In the Eucharist, we pray “Sanctify us…that we may serve you in unity, constancy and peace.” Peter and Paul neither one started out being constant, and they were the farthest thing from unified at first.

Peter and Paul were on opposite teams; Paul was jailing Peter’s friends and colleagues and having them killed, methodically and with the consent of the religious authorities. When people were stoning Stephen to death, Paul (the man on the right -->) was holding their coats for them.
Later, he got more proactive about it. He obtained letters authorizing him to round up anyone following what they called ‘the Way.’ That’s where he was headed, letter in hand, when Jesus struck him blind, asking “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

Paul was full of himself with authority. Jesus had to knock him off his high horse – literally – before he would be quiet enough to listen to the story he’d been shouting down, and hear the truth of the Gospel message. Blinded, helpless, he had to let his victims lead him by the hand, and he learned about faith from them: people he thought were destroying the faith - people like Peter.

Peter’s issue was a bit the opposite. He didn’t need to be knocked down; he was already 'lower than a snake’s belly' with shame, ever since he denied even knowing Jesus – after he had sworn to die for him. He'd thought he was brave but found out he wasn’t. Jesus had to get him to lift his head again and take responsibility for leading the others, even though he didn’t feel able or worthy to, even though he was still scared to die, because people were still trying to kill them – people like Paul.

The persecutor and the deserter... the faithless friend and the outright enemy: both would prove constant in the end.

From the beginning, Peter had left his fishing nets and his home, left everything to follow Jesus. He was the first of the disciples to correctly apprehend who Jesus was.
“Who do you say that I am?”

“You are the Messiah of God” 

At the Last Supper, when Jesus began talking about his imminent betrayal and murder, Peter vowed

"Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!"

But a few hours later, a girl pointed at him in the firelight and said he had been with Jesus, and Peter said,

“I don’t know him.”

Peter, the rock, was not so strong and constant then, and when he heard the rooster crow, he broke down crying and ran.

But encountering the risen Christ can make a difference – can change a person. Jesus rose again and came back to see them, and one of the things he did was restore Peter to dignity and to responsibility –
“Do you love me?”

“You know everything; you know I love you.”

“Feed my sheep.”
And he told him something else – he told him that it would cost him his life. And standing there by the lake, just as they had three years before, Jesus once more said to Peter,
“Follow me.”

And again, Peter did – this time, knowing all that it might mean, he didn’t shrink back; he didn’t run; he didn’t deny Jesus. He followed him to prison, to trial, and to death, crucified upside down at the hands of the Romans under Nero.

Constancy: Peter, who had denied Jesus, turned out to be as strong as a rock.

Jesus can change people in ways that don’t seem possible. We see this in the unlikely collaboration of Peter and Paul. Paul was a well-educated and sophisticated Jew and a Roman citizen. Peter was an uneducated fisherman from Galilee. Peter believed Jesus was the Messiah; Paul wanted to kill people like him. 2000 years later, we remember them together on June 29, the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Our national cathedral is the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. How did they end up together, these two who started out so diametrically opposed to each other?

Paul had thrown people in prison and approved of executing followers of Jesus, trying to protect his faith from those he felt were trying to destroy it - until Jesus met him on the road and turned him around. Paul then became a wholehearted follower of Jesus and studied under those he had tried to have killed, including Peter, submitting to their leadership. Amazingly, they let him in and taught him – and then sent him out with their blessing to preach to others.

It ended up mostly being Gentiles who listened to him, and this created another complicated issue for the Church. Lots of people weren’t sure Gentiles should be included, or if they were, perhaps they should submit to the Jewish customs also. In Acts, Peter has a vision, followed by an encounter with the family of Cornelius, a centurion, that leads him to accept the idea of Gentiles being part of the Church, but it wasn’t easy for him. Paul tells about confronting Peter for not being consistent in his acceptance of Gentile Christians. They had a very public argument about it. But when the church leaders gather for a council in Jerusalem, it’s Peter who stands up first to speak on behalf of the Gentiles.

For his part, Paul was also putting his neck out there in support of the Gospel being for everyone. During his travels, he was arrested, beaten, put in prison, stoned, and exiled – several times – before being beheaded, for preaching that Jesus was the Savior of the whole world: Jew and Gentile alike. According to tradition, Paul was also executed in Rome under Nero, the same year as Peter. Being a Roman citizen, he was granted the right to have his head cut off rather than be crucified. The Jew who had approved killing to protect the Jewish faith from the Gospel in the end died proclaiming it to people who weren’t even Jews.

Peter and Paul had different backgrounds, different gifts and failings, and different missions in the Church. Both worked, in different contexts, to spread the good news that Jesus had saved everyone in the world from sin. When you have a message like that, it’s ridiculous to fight over logistics.

We have the same message to share. We have different backgrounds, different gifts and failings, and different missions in the Church. We live and work in different contexts. Peter and Paul’s collaboration is an example for us of the unity we pray for and work towards.

Jesus’ words to Peter and to Paul - and to us - are clear.
“Why are you persecuting me?”
“Do you love me? …Feed my sheep.”
Our prayer and our response should mirror theirs: Lord, open our eyes to ways we injure you in our conflicts; give us strength and courage to follow you despite our fears… “that we may serve you in unity, constancy and peace.” (BCP 363, Eucharistic Prayer A)

Amen

----------------
Extra! Extra!

"Stained glass bluegrass" group Daily & Vincent singing "Don't you want to go to heaven when you die?" - partly coming from today's gospel text:

Here's another one: "Peter, Do you love me?" by The Primitives

John 21:15-19 in American Sign Language.

Seventh Word

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun's light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Having said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:44-46)

When it comes time for me to die, will I have the time, the opportunity, to choose to let go?

In the Great Litany (BCP p. 149), we pray:

"From dying suddenly and unprepared, Good Lord, deliver us."

But it's not dying that we pray to be delivered from; we all die - Jesus died. And if you had to choose the amount of time it took, some may prefer suddenly.
It's this idea of dying unprepared that's terrible.
- - But this is the thing you do have a choice about. There is no choice about whether you will die, and how you'll die is not really in your control either.
But preparing, you can do - and you can do it now, at any time.  That's the point of Ash Wednesday (BCP p. 265):

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

Jesus taught us everything we need to know about being human. He showed us how to love, how to serve, how to pray, how to suffer - even how to die:
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."

Most of our lives, we're learning to let go: of people we love, of places we leave, of things we don't need - and anyway can't keep, even of ourselves - who and what we have been.
When we die, it will be letting go of the last of what we're holding onto here and putting ourselves in God's hands.
When it comes time for you to die, will you be able to say this, to do it?

Do you realize that you already have?

As Paul said to the folks in Rome (Romans 6:3)

 "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?"

Remember our baptismal covenant (BCP p. 302) :

"Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior ... Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?"     I do.

And remember our prayer at the Eucharist (Prayer B - BCP p. 369):

"Unite us to your Son is his sacrifice, that we may be acceptable through him..."

From dying suddenly and unprepared, he has already delivered us.
At your baptism, you already commended your spirit into the Father's hands; His hands are already holding you.
Let go of everything else.

Fifth Word

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill scripture), "I am thirsty." A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. (John 19:28-29)

It's a genuine human need - the need for water.
We like to think we're complicated, but our basic needs are very simple; our bodies are mostly made of water, and without it, we die.
Jesus was no superhuman, no demi-god or phantom. He was human, like us, and when his body became dehydrated from exposure and loss of blood, he was thirsty.

What do you thirst for?
Listen to your body:
What makes you shaky and sweaty when you don't have it?  alcohol?   coffee?  pills?
Observe your emotions and behavior:
When do you snap at people close to you?  When you need rest?  need food?

What makes you ignore even food and rest, driving yourself into the ground after it, obsessed...
Insatiable thirsts:   for success,  for recognition,   approval?   for power,   love?   for money?
If these are what you want, you will never be satisfied with life - you'll never get enough.

Morgan Dix addressed the congregation at Trinity Church, New York on this same day, on this same topic in 1894 - more than a hundred years ago, but he could be talking to us:

"O poor, dissatisfied, harassed and troubled race! O scene of eager and hopeless longing and desire, on which this Cross looks down, telling that everlasting truth, which men everlastingly decline to believe! There is no relief from it, excepting in the Cross."

You can drink enough water for the next couple of hours, but pretty soon, you'll be thirsty again, and tomorrow, and tomorrow - like the Samaritan woman drawing water from the well.
There is no relief from even the concrete and basic things our bodies crave, much less the abstract and indefinable things our minds desire.

How much approval is enough?

How much money is enough?

If you thirst for things that you can never get enough of, your thirst will be a torture, a continual reminder of what you don't have. You will go "wretched and tormented, from loss to loss, all the days of your life." (M. Dix)

We thirst for God... In him we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17)
As a deer pants for water, so my soul longs for God...(Psalm 42)

But the world around is offering me vinegar.

I am thirsty.

Third Word

Standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. (John 19:26-27)

“Who is my mother?”

Once, earlier, Jesus’ mother and brothers came to where he was teaching and wanted to talk to him, and he had looked around and said, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ (Mt 12:48) … ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.’ (Lk 8:21)
That’s what we’re supposed to be about: hearing God’s word and doing it. So, when we’re doing what we’re supposed to, we’re living as part of the household of God, and we should treat each other as family… or preferably, as family should be treated.

Nobody can replace your mother; nobody can replace your father, your sister, your son.

But the respect and honor you give your parents, the unconditional but also unrelenting love and concern you have for your children - can inform how you relate to people here and in the Church as a whole.

Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your
family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be
betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer
death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and
the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  (BCP p. 276 - Good Friday liturgy)

Blood is thicker than water –
and we are bound by Christ’s blood to each other.

As he was dying, Jesus connected the one who loved him
with the one he loved.

He still does:

- he gives you people who love him and asks you to honor and respect them as you would your own parents … Here is your mother

- he gives you people he loves and asks you to love and care for them as you would your own children … Here is your son

First Word

When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals--one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. (Lk 23:33-34)


Who have you crucified?   
Nobody? Come on…

What’s the maddest you’ve ever been?
– so mad it scared you and you try to forget about it?
Who did you turn on?
What did you do to them?
Have you ever talked about it since?

Who has most deeply offended and disappointed you?A teacher? Public official? Sports figure? The president? A priest?
What did they do? Or at least… what was the accusation? (In public opinion court, it’s the same thing…) Did they molest a child, embezzle money, have an affair? … or in some other way not live up to expectations?
What was the response of the community? of the news?
And where were you in the mix? Did you shoot your arrows with the rest – or were you out front yelling ‘fire!’, doing “a dirty job that somebody’s gotta do.”

What about the time you were accused…
when they needed the blame to fit somebody, and you were called in to answer.
“So, who was responsible for this?”
Even if it wasn’t you, who did you throw under the bus?

If not any of these, there are always sins of omission...
failing to render aid…
Whose trouble have you so successfully looked past, ignored so that it’s just annoying background noise?

Not our finest hour – any of these.

And from up there, he has seen it all.

But we can join his gracious prayer: Father, forgive me… I didn't know what I was doing.

Bless the dying

5th Sunday in Lent, Year C - Readings

Mary anoints Jesus' feet with aromatic oil and wipes them with her hair; the house fills with the fragrance of the perfume. What is she doing? Jesus explains that she is anointing him for burial.

Not long before, Mary had rubbed the same kind of oil on her brother Lazarus's feet and helped wrap his body with spices in long strips of cloth before they buried him. Earlier, when Lazarus was sick, they had sent word to Jesus, but he hadn't come, and her brother died. She cried for days. Then finally Jesus came, and he raised her brother from the dead.

Now, they are all here together again, in Bethany, a small town outside Jerusalem, where Jesus knows his death is waiting. This evening, about a week before Passover, he has come to his friends' home for dinner. Lazarus is sitting at the table; Martha is serving the food. Judas is glaring at his weirdo little sister, who has now untied her hair, and perfume is filling the house.
Before we go further, I want to clarify some mix-ups that you may have about Mary and about this situation.
You are not alone (but you are also not correct) if you think this is Mary Magdalene. You're also wrong if you assume she is or ever was a prostitute. But this is not completely your fault; it used to be an official interpretation, articulated by Pope Gregory in a sermon in 591. Now, however, people officially agree this interpretation was wrong, but it's hard to change a story people have become so committed to. ("Mary Magdalene: Saint or Sinner?")

Why did the Pope say these women (Mary of Bethany, Mary Magdalene and another woman in Luke's gospel) were all the same? One actual theory is that there were just too many Marys and it was confusing, so the church combined them to clean up the story.
There are a lot of Marys in the Bible: there's Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary the mother of Joses and Salome, and "the other Mary" as well as this Mary – Mary of Bethany. But you can't just amalgamate them.
Imagine if we decided: It's too confusing to have three Carols in our congregation. From now on, let's just say they are all the same Carol. Won't that make things clearer?
We also have several Johns: we even have several Father Johns in our history. Why not, for the sake of economy, just combine them all into one conglomerate priest we could name "Fr. John William Bedingfield Sonnen" – "Fr. John" for short. And if there are priests whose names we don't remember, they can also be included as part of "Fr. John."


This is basically what happened to Mary of Bethany. But she is her own person, and who she is and what she does in this story are important in the Gospel, which is also part of our story.
We are Christians; Jesus is the Christ, and Mary of Bethany is someone who acted toward Jesus in a way that was exactly appropriate. As Episcopalians, we also strive to act in ways that are exactly appropriate in each situation – so it would be good for us to pay attention to Mary of Bethany.

Who was Mary of Bethany, and what allows her to respond to Jesus in a way that is so fitting?
Mary of Bethany is that same Mary of Mary & Martha fame – she sat a Jesus' feet while her sister was busy in the kitchen, and when Martha complained to Jesus that he should make her help with the work, Jesus said, Leave her alone; she's doing the right thing.

One thing I learned from Bishop Doyle's scripture reflections this week was that some scholars say Mary is also Judas Iscariot's sister. Imagine that! What a family group: Mary & Martha, Lazarus, and Judas. And their dad is Simon the Leper.
In this story, Judas is complaining about his sister's behavior. She has basically just poured a year's salary down the drain as far as he's concerned, so he complains to Jesus about the waste. Like he'd said to Martha, Jesus tells Judas, Leave her alone - she's doing exactly the right thing.


A lot of commentaries make what I consider to be a patronizing and idiotic assumption that when Mary poured the perfumed oil on Jesus feet, she had really no understanding of what she was doing or why.
I think she knew what she was doing. There is a long tradition of people, particularly the prophets, acting out messages: Jeremiah wearing a yoke to illustrate Israel's enslavement, Hosea marrying a prostitute to show how God is faithful to his unfaithful people, Ezekiel making a tiny model of Jerusalem and besieging it, and on and on – and they all did these things intentionally, putting the meaning into words later.
In the same way, Jesus put into words the meaning of Mary's actions, to clarify what she was doing and why. Every week, we do something similar when we participate in the Eucharist to remember Jesus' sacrifice for us and the new life we have in his new life: "We remember his death. We proclaim his resurrection…" Actions help us remember, and the words explain the meaning.

When it comes to memory, the senses are the best triggers - and the most powerful is the sense of smell. Nothing can pull you so powerfully or so quickly back into a particular time or place as a familiar smell. In this story, it's clear that people remembered the smell of the perfume filling the hosue, because they specifically wrote that into the story. The smell was a powerful part of their memory of what happened there. What might it have triggered for them on that night?

If people at that time were familiar with preparing bodies for burial, those smells would already be associated for them pretty powerfully, but especially for that particular family. Remember, it was not long ago that Lazarus had been raised from the dead – but before that, he died and had to be anointed for burial.

Lazarus himself was at the table that night; what would the smell have triggered for him? He was the one who had been embalmed in those oils and spices. As he sat there, maybe he smelled their sharp scent stinging his nostrils and was back in the dark of the tomb again, waking up bound head to toe, trying to suck air through layers of linen cloth around his face, struggling upright and pulling at the shroud, lurching forward and suddenly blinking in the sunlight. And now, with that same smell filling the air, Lazarus watches his sister anoint with embalming perfume the feet of the man who brought him back from death.
Martha stands nearby, the smell taking her even a few days further back, to the day of her brother's death: no time to grieve, too much to do, but then working together with her sister to prepare his body for burial, closing his beautiful eyes and then finally binding his face in white linen cloth. When Lazarus came out of the tomb four days later, restored – it was like a dream. After Jesus brought her brother back, it seemed impossible to imagine that smell ever coming into their home again – but here it was, filling her with fresh grief, even though her brother was sitting at the table in front of her, alive. How is it possible to equate that smell with Jesus? How could it be possible that he would die?

This is a family very recently acquainted with death, so it may be that not everybody needed to have it explained. Except Judas – all he could smell was money. But possibly for the others, a much deeper realization was settling in. Just because Lazarus had been raised, that didn't mean death would never touch them again. It would – very soon.
Mary paid attention and knew Jesus well enough to realize that this man, whom they loved and who had done so much for them, was preparing to die. As impossible as that seemed to be to imagine or accept, she had already accepted it and she had made preparations. Now, though she didn't want it to be, the time was right, and the house began to fill with the fragrance as she poured out her offering of love and grief.

Some of the most beautiful and mysterious works we perform as a Church are our prayers and service for those who are dying. Many of you have experience of offering this kind of service to those you love.
Mary of Bethany blessed Jesus in this way. May we take her as a model for how to "bless the dying, soothe the suffering and pity the afflicted." (BCP p.134 from the service of Compline in the Daily Office)
Amen.
Given to St. John's, Silsbee on March 21, 2010