Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-15

We don’t get a lot of information about Joseph in the Gospels. We get a lot about Mary, and rightfully so, but after Luke’s story about Jesus, Mary, and Joseph visiting the Temple and Jesus going off to talk to the elders, Joseph just kind of disappears. We only see his name when we hear Jesus referred to as “Joseph’s son.” Some scholars have suggested that he may have died before Jesus began his public ministry. We just don’t know.

But St. Joseph is very important in some circles. The Feast of St. Joseph – March 19 — is a very special day in the Italian community. I don’t know of any city that celebrates like Providence, Rhode Island, especially the area known as Federal Hill, well-known throughout the state as the center of the Italian community. Their celebration is a complete blowout — street fairs, a big parade, the whole thing. They will often move the celebration into June, because, let’s face it, March in Rhode Island can be a bit iffy for outside celebrations. But let’s just say that St. Joseph is really big for folks of Italian extraction.

Personally, I think it’s really important to take a good look at Joseph, and not because I spent a good deal of my life in Rhode Island. I think he can teach us a few things.

An interesting thing about Mathew’s infancy tale is that we don’t get Mary’s story. Unlike in Luke’s gospel there’s no Annunciation, no Magnificat, no “Hail Mary, full of grace.”. We just hear that Mary “is found to be with child.” She seems almost passive, an afterthought. Because Matthew is focusing on Joseph.

So we get Joseph’s story.

Mary and Joseph were “betrothed.” In the 1^st-century culture into which Jesus was born, a betrothal was pretty much the same as marriage. The only thing left was moving in together and the consummation of the marriage. Betrothal was a done deal.

And unfaithfulness after betrothal counted as adultery.

The punishment for adultery — at least for women — was pretty hearsay. Death was on the table. At the very least, Joseph would have been perfectly within his rights to denounce Mary in public, then throw her out to fend for herself.

But that’s not what he had decided to do. He had decided to “dismiss her quietly.” Being a product of his time, he couldn’t see any way he could marry her, that just wasn’t done. Be he could still be kind and not hold her up to the ridicule of others. I have a lot of sympathy for Joseph. These days we wouldn’t blink an eye at a pregnant bride, but back then it was a serious breach of social norms. Any way you look at it, Joseph was as nice a guy as his culture allowed him to be.

But God had other ideas. For God’s purposes, being a “nice guy” wasn’t quite enough.

So God sends an angel to Joseph in a dream, explaining what he is to do. “You can go ahead and get married,” the angel tells him. “It’s OK. This baby is going to be really important. Oh, and by the way, name him Jesus.”

Joseph was going to do the nice thing, the safe thing. But that’s not what God wanted. God had other plans. He wanted Joseph to take a chance. To take a chance that there would be talk. “Did you hear about Joseph? Mary was already pregnant when they married! It’s a terrible scandal!” There would be whispering behind his back. There would be snickering. Joseph might even lose business over it.

God is suggesting that Joseph put his reputation on the line for the sake of a child that he didn’t father. The amazing thing about Joseph is that he does it.

You see, God doesn’t think the way we do. God doesn’t worry about our social conventions, or our ideas abut how life is supposed to proceed. He rides roughshod over our plans, over the way we think things are supposed to work.

God never guarantees that what he has for us to do will be safe. In fact, Jesus often told his disciples that following him would definitely not be safe. That the world would not want to hear what they had to say. When we truly follow Christ, we will find ourselves doing things we never thought we would do, things we never thought we could do. Just as Joseph did, we can find ourselves doing things we couldn’t have even imagined doing. I can vouch for that personally.

As we celebrate this last Sunday of Advent, as we look forward toward the Nativity we will celebrate Wednesday night, are we willing to to do what Joseph did? Will we welcome this little child into our hearts, knowing what it may cost us?

Joseph did what was necessary so that the Saviour of Mankind could come into the world. Let us pray that we will have the same courage in showing that Saviour to the world.

Amen.

Genesis 18:1-10a; Psalm 15; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42

Preached at St. Mary Magdalene Episcopal Church in Belton, MO, July 20, 2025

I’m sure many of you remember the movie “City Slickers,” starring Billy Crystal and the late great Jack Palance. It concerned some men from New York taking part in a cattle drive, led by Curly, an old cowhand played by Palance. Crystal’s character, Mitch, is convinced by his wife to go along hoping to cure his rat-race burnout. At one point he asks Curly about the meaning of life. Curly holds up one finger.

“Your finger?” asks Mitch.

Curly replies “One thing. Just one thing.”

Crystal’s character says “But what is the one thing?”

Curly smiles and replies, “That’s what you have to find out.”

Today’s Gospel is a familiar one. Jesus comes to Martha’s house, and Martha’s sister Mary is also there. Martha gets busy doing all the things any hostess would be doing — preparing food, making sure everyone is comfortable, etc.

Mary, on the other hand, just sits and listens to Jesus. Martha complains that Mary needs to give her a hand, and Jesus basically tells her to leave Mary alone. “There is need,” he says, “of only one thing.”

Hospitality was a major virtue in first-century Palestine. When someone came to your house, the women of the house saw to their needs —  it was a patriarchal society, after all. And we like to think we’re hospitable and polite now, but this went way beyond that. If someone stops by our house, maybe we’ll get them a cup of coffee or a glass of tea, maybe some cookies. Back then, you would be expected to go all out. You would likely get them a pan of water to wash the road dust off their feet, provide them with a full meal — as Abraham did for three strangers in the Old Testament lesson today — and likely even provide them with a place to sleep for the night.

So Martha is only doing what her upbringing and culture taught her to do. She’s not doing anything wrong there. What she does do is complain about Mary. But at no point does Jesus say, “Martha, you need to stop being hospitable.” He doesn’t tell her to sit down and listen to him. What he says is “Martha, you’re distracted and bothered by all this stuff. Mary is getting what she needs right now, and I won’t take that away from her.” Jesus chides Martha for her distraction and her complaint. Her absolute focus on her tasks is getting in the way. In effect, Jesus is saying “You’re so busy doing things that you’re forgetting why you’re doing them.”

It’s pretty easy to see how this can apply to our lives today. We all have a lot going on. Everything is clamoring for our attention. Family, work, friends, church. Everything screams at us to pay attention.

But we have an advantage that Billy Crystal’s character didn’t have. We already know what that “one thing” is. Or, if we don’t, as Christians we should already know. That one thing, for us, is Jesus. That’s where we need to keep our focus. Not on the news, not on what’s going on politically, not on our business. Our focus needs to be Jesus.

Now, all that being said, this does not mean that we lock ourselves away from everything and just concentrate on Jesus 24-7, totally ignoring everything else. That’s not how we’re meant to live. We need to listen to Christ, yes, but once we listen, once we understand what he is telling us, we have a responsibility to take that understanding out into the world, to be Christ’s voice — and hands — in the world. But we can only do that effectively by focusing on that one thing.

In a few minutes Gabriel Sparks is going to make some promises. Those promises are designed specifically for the focusing of one’s attention on that one thing –  on Jesus. He will promise to pray daily, morning and evening. He will promise to study the Scriptures. And he will promise to be held accountable by another to help him stay on track in keeping his life pointed toward that one thing.

Now, not everybody is cut out for the religious life, but you can still make room for Jesus in your everyday life. Maybe it’s just a short meditation when you get up in the morning. The thing is, we all know what that one thing is. And if we tune out all the things that are screaming at us and pay attention to that one thing, even for just a bit every day, our lives are so much better. I know that Episcopalians are not the best at praying during the week, even those who are deeply involved in the life of their parish.

We come to church on Sunday to be Mary — to listen to Jesus, to hear the Word of God, to be fed with his Body and Blood. But so often we go out into the world and for the rest of the week, we stop focusing on that one most important thing. We need to do better.

At the end of “City Slickers,” Mitch realizes that the one thing, to him, is his family. When he makes that connection, he can come home refreshed and ready to be the person he needs to be. If we can keep our lives focused on our own one thing — on Jesus — we can be the people God intended us to be. We can change the world.

Amen.

 

Pentecost 2024

Genesis 11;1-9; Psalm 33:12-22; Acts 2:1-11; John 7:37-39a

Some years ago, I was lucky enough to direct the very first production by the Stage Company of Poplar Bluff in the newly cleaned-up Rodger’s Theater. Basically all we did was clean the trash and pigeon poop out of there and sweep it out. We got it clean enough so that we could mount a production. Not a great venue, but the price was right — just some elbow grease. Well, a lot of elbow grease. The show that we put on was Godspell, which is based on Matthew’s gospel, and just happens to include several hymn texts that were found in the 1940 Episcopal hymnal.

While I was preparing to direct the show — and believe me, when you direct a musical, the is a LOT of prep work — I was surprised to find out that the very first musical number was often omitted. The number, titled “Tower of Babble,” (spelled B-A-B-B-L-E) features a set of philosophers — Socrates, Thomas Aquinas, Frederic Nietzsche, and more — all singing part of their writings in turn. Eventually, they start singing over each other, each trying to drown out the others, and the scene degenerates into a melee. In the middle of the fight, a shofar, a ram’s horn, is sounded and the character representing John the Baptist enters from the back of the theater singing “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”

When I discovered that this was often left out, I was surprised, because to my mind, this is the perfect way to begin. Yet I had never heard of it. The one production I had seen on stage didn’t use it. The movie production replaced it with scenes of arguments breaking out in New York City. I think it often didn’t get used because directors either didn’t understand it or didn’t want to make their cast work that hard. It’s not an easy piece to sing, with 8 actors all singing something different in a kind of crazy fugue. The more I looked at that piece of music, the more I realized I had to keep it in the show. Because that number, to me, epitomized the divisions that we put up between each other, the divisions exemplified by today’s 1^st Reading; the divisions that only disappear in fellowship with Christ. Jesus isn’t on stage yet, but when John sounds his call, everyone stops and…listens. They run to John for baptism, then run out. When they come back in and meet Jesus, they are new people. The philosophers are gone, replaced by disciples. Their man-made divisions are gone.

I wanted go use the Genesis reading today because Pentecost is in some ways a kind of reversal of Babel. At the Tower of Babel, people began by all speaking the same language. According to the story, God confused things so that no one understood what anyone else was saying. Because of this, people just wandered off, leaving the tower unfinished.

At Pentecost, the apostles are speaking and everyone can understand them. People still don’t all speak the same language, but as the apostles are speaking, everyone hears it in their own language, all at the same time. Instead of people wandering away, they are drawn in to this miraculous event and to what Peter has to say in his sermon that follows.

That’s pretty cool.

The Story of BABEL is a fun story, intended to explain why there were so many languages. The important thing about it, as in so many stories in Genesis, is not whether it is factually true, but what it can teach us about the world we live in now. BABEL, according to the story, fractured humanity into factions that couldn’t communicate with each other. As we all well know, that is bound to cause problems. Those problems are what I call the legacy of BABEL.

The legacy of BABEL is gathering ourselves into separate nations and acting as if OUR nation is so much better than any other.

The legacy of BABEL is looking at those who have different beliefs from ours, or different gender orientation or sexual preference, and deciding they do not deserve the same rights as people like US.

The legacy of BABEL is what prompts us to pass laws restricting human rights because those people just don’t deserve them. BABEL is what prompts us to want to make our religion the Only True Religion ™ and insist that everyone else is completely wrong.

But the legacy of BABEL is also what gives us our diversity, the differences in language, and culture, and belief that can enrich our Iives and our viewpoints. We’re not all the same, and that’s a good thing. Those differences can actually make us stronger if we accept them and learn from them.

Unfortunately, we tend not to use BABEL that way. We use BABEL as an excuse to divide ourselves, to build differences between them and us. To put up walls to keep them out. To build Iron Curtains. To put up border walls.

But notice what happens at Pentecost. Pentecost doesn’t actually reverse BABEL, it just…sidesteps it. It acts as if it’s just not there. At Pentecost, people’s languages didn’t disappear; they just weren’t a barrier any more.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t put up walls. She doesn’t necssarily break them down. Instead, she passes right through them, as if they’re not even there. The Holy Spirit, on Pentecost, made the barriers of language, that legacy of BABEL simply … obsolete.

The legacy of BABEL will always be with us, as long as we live on this unreconstructed Earth. It’s part of us. We can’t escape it entirely and, as I said before, it can have some positive features if we recognize it for what it is and learn from it.

If we learn the lesson of Pentecost, if we allow the Holy Spirit maybe not  to break the walls, but to pass through them as if they weren’t even there, we can be part of that beautiful new world that God wants to create, that He is creating through His Spirit. A world where walls don’t divide us. A world in which there really are no barriers.

Amen.

 

 

 

Well, we made it.

We made it through Lent.

We made it through the wilderness.

We made it through tornados and floods.

We have come through our forty days of fasting, our forty days of wandering, and have finally arrived at a land flowing with milk and honey.

This week, as it should be, has been a special week.

On Thursday, we sat with Christ and his disciples at the Last Supper and heard him tell them and us to “Love one another.”

On Friday we watched as Christ was condemned, crucified, and laid in the tomb.

Today, until just a few minutes ago, we lived in the emptiness of Holy Saturday, knowing what is to come, but also knowing we were not there yet. A time when the apostles couldn’t be sure that anything would ever be right again.

Tonight, we have listened to the old, old stories, God’s salvation of Israel at the Red Sea, and my own favorite reading, Ezekiel’s vision of a restored Israel in the Valley of Dry Bones. We have heard Paul tell of what Christ’s resurrection means for us. And we have heard the story of the women at the tomb. I’m glad we read Matthew’s account tonight. Unlike Luke’s telling, in Matthew the women actually see and touch the risen Christ. That’s an important point that we will come back to in a bit.

Some of you of may know that my Father died 3 years ago on Maundy Thursday. It’s because he died during Holy Week that it has become special to me.

You see my father had a rock-solid belief in resurrection. When my Mother died, he talked about how he wasn’t heartbroken, because she was out of pain and he knew—knew—that they would see each other again. This is the faith we should all have, the faith that we should show in our lives every day. His faith was what gave me strength when my own wife Kim died suddenly and unexpectedly last October. Because with his Resurrection, Christ vindicated my father’s — and my — faith. In his Resurrection, Christ showed that Resurrection could really happen, would really happen.

At the beginning of Lent, on Ash Wednesday, we are told “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” We take our mortality out and look it square in the face.

But tonight, when we hear the Exultet, when we hear the readings of God’s saving deeds throughout the ages, when we respond with psalm and canticle, and when we renew the promises we made at Baptism , and declare that Christ has indeed risen front the dead, we are doing something incredibly important. We are declaring to the world that death itself has been conquered. That our death has been conquered. We are claiming that we don’t have to be afraid of it anymore. We are claiming that death has no power over us. And that’s why this week is a week of joy for me, instead of overwhelming sadness.

Because, as Father Paul sang, this is the night. This is the night. This is the night when everything that Jesus said was vindicated. This is the night of which every other church service is only an echo. We make a huge deal of Christmas, and rightly so. Easter Sunday is important, sure. But this night, this holy night, is the most important, most holy time of the year. We have those Old Testament readings because we need to see the whole story. We need to feel the power and depth and sweep of the history that led up to this night.

This special night is the climax of a love story that began in the depths of time before Creation. This night is prefigured by the ancient stories of the Creation, the salvation of Noah and his family from the Flood, and the Israelites’ passing through the Red Sea. This night was hinted at by the prophets. The events of this night were set in motion by an announcement to Mary and the birth of a small child. This night was made possible by a betrayal, arrest, trial, and execution. This night is the completion of all those bits and pieces. This night is what history was headed toward from before the beginning of time.

This is the night when Christ made the down payment on our promise of resurrection. That’s resurrection. Not a disembodied ghost-like existence after we die, but a real, physical, resurrection of the body. That is the promise. In our Renewal of Baptismal Vows just a few moments ago, we said that we believe in the resurrection of the body. When Christ rose from the dead, he didn’t come back as a ghost. The women in tonight’s Gospel touched him. They grabbed his feet. He came back fully, physically alive, and that is what is in store for us.

And so, tonight, we celebrate the Eucharist of our crucified and risen Christ. We celebrate his Resurrection and look forward to our own. And we shout our alleluias to the heavens for the saving work that God began before the heavens and the earth were formed, the saving work that He, through Jesus Christ, has accomplished this holy night.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Allelua!

Amen.

 

7th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C

Genesis 45:3-11, 15; Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42; 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50; Luke 6:27-38

Today’s Gospel follows immediately after last week’s. Anyone remember what that was? That’s right, the Beatitudes. Here’s a little review.

Everybody loves the Beatitudes. Those who are poor, who are sorrowing, who are marginalized need to hear them. For us, they are nice to listen to. They are a favorite reading. They’re important. And they make us feel good.

In Luke, though, the “blesseds” are followed by the “woes,” which are pointed directly at a different audience. I tend to think they are directed at US. Simply making people feel good was rarely what Jesus was aiming at, and we need to remember that when we read his teachings. Jesus’s words often have different meanings for different groups of people. While he is giving words of comfort to those in need, at the same time he’s jolting the rest of us out of our comfort zones. He’s interested in making us change our behavior.

 The Beatitudes in Luke are not just platitudes: simple, nice sayings. They’re not just words of encouragement, although they are certainly encouraging. When you add on the woes, they are aspirational. They are something to work toward. To us, to those of us with some privilege, they say, “These things aren’t always true yet, but they will be. We can do something about this. We should be working to get to a world where these things become true for everyone: where the poor inherit God’s kingdom; where the hungry always have enough to eat; and where those who are sorrowful can laugh with joy; where people who are condemned for standing up for Christ gain their reward.”

Today’s Gospel, following directly after the Beatitudes, is what lets us know that we have to actually do something about those beautiful, beautiful words. It’s a short passage that, I think, often gets short shrift because it follows the more beloved verses. At least one commentary (the Oxford Bible Commentary, if you can believe it) skims right over this passage without comment. But these verses take the goals of those glorious lines and give specific and concrete instructions for making them real, here and now. And in doing that, they give us useful instruction on how to live like Christ.

Here’s how Jesus says we get to that world where the Beatitudes are fulfilled:

That person who acts like your enemy? Love them.

That person who hates you? Do something nice for them.

The people who curse you or abuse you? Give them a blessing.

The person who hits you? Don’t hit them back.

Give to everyone who asks, even if they steal from you.

And the kicker: Treat everyone else the way you want to be treated. Note: not the way you think they deserve, but how you want to be treated.

That’s a tall order, but it can be done. And we have examples of how to do it.

We have Saint Damien of Molokai, who left Belgium to go to Hawaii and care for victims of Hansen’s disease — leprosy—continuing to work and care for them even after he had contracted the disease himself. Eventually, he died from it. He gave up himself to do what he felt Christ wanted him to do.

We have Saint Teresa of Kolkata, the nun who heard a call to serve the “poorest of the poor,” and founded the Missionaries of Charity at the age of 38. She spent the rest of her life serving the poor of every faith in the slums, and died in Kolkata. She gave herself up to the work.

Most of us will not be called to go as far as these two, but we are always called to take a stand against the evils that are in the world. Evils that may be natural, or that may be man-made.

The answer to “How do we get to the world of the Beatitudes?” can be summarized as: we must give up ourselves. We must give up our egos, our wants and desires. We must give them over to Christ. That…is a hard message, living in our world that deifies accomplishment, that celebrates rugged individualism. But Jesus says this again and again in the Gospels. “Leave everything and follow me.”

In today’s Gospel, we are told not to meet hate with hate, but instead, to meet hate with love. And that is one of the hardest things you will ever do in your life. But in giving up our egos, we no longer have any reason to  hate. Dr. Martin Luther King once said,  “I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

Some might be tempted to say that this scripture means that we should be passive in the face of evil. I really don’t think that’s the case. There are other passages that tell us in no uncertain terms that we are to resist evil. But what, we are to do is resist evil…with good. We are to show our resistance without hate, without rancor. You can stand up against someone who is doing evil without hating them. You can be angry without hating. You can respond to someone doing wrong to you or someone else without responding in kind. And that is what we are being told to do. All of our responses are to be grounded in love.

And I know that right now this might be extremely difficult. There are a lot of days when I am just not feeling it. When I want to respond in kind, to meet abuse with abuse, hate with hate. But being followers of Christ means turning away from the tit-for-tat actions that might cause us to hit back, or to call someone a name when they do the same to us. It means learning a new way to confront the evils in the world.

Moving toward the world of the Beatitudes means learning to live by the law of love, instead of the law of the jungle.

It may be the hardest thing we ever do, and we can only do it through the power of Christ.

Amen.

 

Third Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21

Today is Religious Life Sunday in the Episcopal church, which is kind of why I am preaching, being one of two religious at Holy Cross. In case you don’t know, the other is Br. Brian Sadler, a Franciscan. I was thinking at first I would do a sermon about the Religious life, but I’ve done that here, just a couple of years ago, and pretty much everybody knows my story. Heck, most of you lived it with me as I went from Inquirer to Postulant, Postulant to Novice, Novice to Life Professed. If you don’t know and are interested, I’d be happy to talk to you about it later.

And I could have done such a sermon with today’s Epistle reading being about the various parts of the body needing each other, and likening the parts of the body to bishops, priests, deacons, Religious, vestries, food pantry workers, etc. But over the course of the week the reading from the First Letter to the Church in Corinth began to speak to me a different way.

Ancient Corinth was a port city. That means a lot of people coming and going. It means a lot of diversity. It means a lot of wealth. Port cities are usually centers of trade. And, it appears, that was a problem in the Corinthian church. Not the diversity or the wealth or the trade in themselves, but the church there was breaking up into competing cliques. Rich versus poor, followers of Paul versus followers of Peter versus followers of Apollos. And Paul felt the need to assert some leadership.

The image he uses here in his letter — of the various parts of an organization being like the parts of a body — is actually a common one in Roman times. It was often used to illustrating the interconnectedness of different social groups within a community. So Paul, as he often did, is leveraging a bit of Roman rhetoric to make a point for the Corinthians. You are all a part of the same body. Different parts have different ways of acting. They do different things. Despite this, they are ALL necessary for the proper functioning of the body of Christ. No one can say to another that they are not needed.

This means that you are not unimportant in the Body of Christ. You are just as important as anyone else. Think about what that means! You are as important as I am. You are as important as any clergy, and yes, you are as important as Bishop Deon, or as the Presiding Bishop.

And looking at it another way, no one is unimportant in the Body of Christ.

We can’t look down on anyone else and say we’re more important to God. We are all children of God, whether we say so or not.

And Paul doesn’t stop there. He goes through a litany of the various gifts and ministries that the Holy Spirit enables in us to do the work of the Body of Christ: apostles, prophets, teachers, healers, assistance, leadership. It’s quite a list. He ends this litany by telling the Corinthians to “strive for the greater gifts.”

But we only get the first half of that last verse in our reading today or, if I’m not mistaken, any other Sunday. In it, Paul says, “And I will show you a still more excellent way.” This is the lead-in to one of the most famous and quoted passages in all of Paul: the “Love” Chapter, where Paul expounds on all the qualities of agape, that selfless love that we are all to show toward everyone. Love is the more excellent way.

But if all of us are parts of one Body, and no part is more or less important than any other, then each part of the Body has a responsibility to all the other parts. We can’t just sit back and say, “the Body will get along just fine without me. I’m just going to sit back and watch.” No, we can’t do that. Every one of us has a responsibility to use the gifts we have, whatever they may be — preaching, teaching, healing, leadership — for the good of the Body and for the greater glory of God. Without everyone’s gifts, it is harder for the work of Christ to get done.

And not only for our local part of the Body of Christ. No, that Body is much larger than just us. It includes every other church in our diocese. It includes churches in other dioceses, in other countries, other denominations. The Body of Christ transcends any borders we may try to use to limit it.

That bum sleeping on the park bench? Just as important to God as you are. That immigrant, traveling thousands of miles to try to make a better life for his family? Just as important. And when you reject someone because of their circumstances, because of their identity, who can tell what gift of the Holy Spirit you might be missing out on?

So, what are we to do as the Body of Christ, as the unified Body of Christ?

Today’s Gospel tells us, as Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah, that he came to bring good news to the poor; proclaim release to captives; recover sight to the blind; let the oppressed go free.

That was Jesus’ agenda. How can it not be ours? Following his agenda is how we show his love to the world. And as a unified Body of Christ, couldn’t we achieve these things? We certainly can’t if we are always looking at “us” versus “them.”

No one is indispensable in the Body of Christ.

Never think that the Church doesn’t need you.

Never think the body of Christ doesn’t need that “other” person, no matter who they are or what their circumstance or where they come from.

Let us then pray for unity, among all parts of the Body of Christ everywhere, and get on with the work of Christ.

Amen.

 

 

Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7; John 1:1-18; Psalm 147

Well, it’s over. We’ve sung Christmas carols.  We’ve opened all the presents. We’ve eaten ourselves into a stupor, basically repeating what we did on Thanksgiving Day, although possibly with a different menu. Many of us have taken down the tree and all of our decorations by now. We’re back to normal.

But wait just a minute. The Advent wreath is still out. Not much has changed in the church since Christmas Eve. We’re still singing Christmas carols. We still have the festive hangings on the altar. What’s the deal? Isn’t Christmas over with?

Not exactly.

It’s true that Christmas Day is over with, but in the Anglican Communion and among our brothers and sisters in other liturgical churches, Christmas lasts until the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6. That’s 12 whole days of celebrating Christmas. Remember the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas?” Christmas Day is only the FIRST day of Christmas.

Why would we do this? We spent all that time in building up to Christmas Day, putting up with the stress. Shopping, cooking, wrapping presents. We’re exhausted. We’re ready for it to be over with.  Why do we need to celebrate for almost two whole weeks?

Could it be, perhaps, that there’s something more to Christmas than we’ve thought about so far? On Christmas Eve we celebrated the Feast of the Incarnation of our Lord, we sat with Joseph and Mary, sang to the child in the manger, and with the shepherds we gazed in wonder at the angels singing in the sky. What else is there?

Let’s take a look at today’s Gospel reading, the one we always read on the first Sunday after Christmas. It’s even more appropriate, because just two days ago, December 27, was the feast of St. John the Evangelist, the author of this text. In the first chapter of his Gospel, he wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

Where Luke, whose gospel we read on Tuesday night, focuses on a baby born in a stable, John goes back just a little bit further than Bethlehem to begin his story. He goes back to the beginning of time. He goes back and begins with the same words as the Old Testament book of Genesis, the very first book in the Bible: “In the beginning.” I am absolutely sure he did this on purpose; it wasn’t an accident. By echoing the very first verse of the Torah, John is making a point. “Go back to the beginning,” he says, “Back before anything was created. You know who was there? Yes, Jesus the Christ was there.”

And he continues: “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”

Jesus was not only there, but he was a principal actor in creation.

Where Luke’s story is earth-bound, John’s viewpoint is cosmic.

“The Word became flesh and lived among us.” This cosmic being, this Son of God, took on humanity and lived as one of us.

Through the prophet Isaiah, God had told the people of Israel that he was going to do “a new thing.” A new thing. Something exciting, something wonderful, something nobody would expect. Our Old Testament reading today says, speaking of Israel, “The nations shall see your vindication…”. Isaiah may not have been able to see what that meant, but for Paul and other New Testament writers, the coming of Jesus was no less than the vindication of Israel, the culmination of the long story of redemption that began with the Creation.

And here it is. The new thing: God’s son, who was present before the beginning of time and who made everything, confined himself to a human body and came to live with us. Not just to pay us a visit. To live with us. The Greek that is usually translated “lived among us” literally means “pitched his tent among us.” He came to set up housekeeping. To be born. To grow up as a child. To go through puberty. To become a man. To laugh. To weep. To do all the small, everyday things we humans do. To share everything about what it means to be human. Even to die.

Many mythological figures had been said to mix with humans before. The Greek gods apparently did it all the time, but they never left anything behind to do it. They always kept all their divinity even when they appeared as human. They never sacrificed anything. They never “pitched their tent” among us.

Christ, on the other hand, came to us as a tiny baby who would have died if humans had not taken care of him. Ponder that for a second.

This is important. Christ’s birth to a young girl in a tiny little village in Palestine changed everything. Christ came down at Christmas, and nothing would ever be the same again. God was no longer a powerful being that held himself at a distance. Now he was with us. He was one of us.

And this is the best reason I know to continue to celebrate Christmas even though Christmas Day is past. There’s just too much. The Incarnation of the Son of God is too immense an event to fit into a single day. We need more time to take in both sides of the story, the earth-bound and the cosmic. Not just the humble birth, but also the eternal significance of that birth.

“The Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.” Christ became one of us. God did a new thing, and everything changed.

So what do we do? How do we respond to a love that would give up so much, give up everything to show us that he understands our lives?

What have we given up?

Have we given up our prejudices, our most precious preconceived notions? Have we given up our tendency to decide who is worthy of love? Have we given up our complacency? Our cynicism? Our bigotry? Have we given up our time? Our treasure?

Have we given up anything?

Have we changed…anything?

To respond to God’s love, we have to admit that for God to change everything by becoming a man means that each of us must be changed. God doing a “new thing” means that we must be changed into something new, something we may not be entirely comfortable with, at least to start. But that change is necessary if we are to carry God’s immense love into the world. We simply can’t do that if we’re carrying a bunch of baggage.

In his birth, Christ put aside his divinity to change everything. As St. Paul tells us in an exquisite bit of poetry, he “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.” We don’t have to put aside anything nearly as huge. We don’t have to put aside anything even close to godhood. Just our fears, our hates, our prejudices, our idolatries, our selfishness.

But that would still change everything.                 

Amen.

Deuteronomy 30:11-14; Psalm 19:1-6; Romans 10:8b-18; Matthew 4:18-22

Delivered at the Kirkin’ of the Tartans at St. James’ Episcopal Church, Springfield, MO on November 30, 2024

Good evening, everyone. I am Brother Michael Malone, and I am a life professed brother in the Anglican Order of Preachers, one of the religious communities within the Episcopal Church. Most people —  including Episcopalians — don’t realize that we even have Religious Orders, but I assure you, we do exist. I am blessed once more to have the privilege of acting as verger this evening, guiding the procession in and out, and of delivering the homily.

We are celebrating our Kirkin’ of the Tartans this year on the Feast of St. Andrew, Scotland’s patron saint. How St. Andrew came to be the Patron of Scotland is interesting, since contrary to legend he never set foot there. To be honest, St. Andrew’s connection to Scotland is…well, actually kind of sketchy. Some of it involves a victory of the Picts over the Saxons, but I won’t go into the sordid details here. The Scottish king attributed the victory to St. Andrew, and there you are. There are a lot of myths and legends, including that Sr. Andrew actually visited Scotland, but I really doubt that. Did you know, that if you put a saltire, a St. Andrew’s cross, on a post next to your fireplace, it will keep witches from flying down the chimney? Handy tip!

St. Andrew is the patron saint of several countries, including Russia and Romania. He’s also the patron saint of fishermen, singers, sore throats, and the gout, for what that’s worth.

This is the first year in a while we’ve celebrated St. Andrew in conjunction with the Kirkin’. We’ve done St. Margaret a couple of times, a Scottish queen known for her acts of charity. And we’ve done Samuel Seabury, the first bishop of the Episcopal Church, who was consecrated by Scottish bishops, perhaps thumbing their noses at the English bishops who had refused to do it.

But what do we really know about St. Andrew?

As it turns out, not very much. As I started researching for this talk, I had trouble finding much about him. Most of it, like the thing with the witches, is folklore. Some is tradition, but the facts to back the traditions just aren’t there. He’s only mentioned in the Bible a couple of times. We do know that he was Simon Peter’s brother, and like his brother was also a fisherman.

And while he was one of the original twelve apostles, he doesn’t seem to have made a huge splash. Not like his brother Peter. Not like the brothers James and John, called by Jesus the “Sons of Thunder.” It’s said that when Andrew was put to death, he was crucified on an x-shaped cross, which is why we have the saltire, St. Andrew’s Cross, on the flag of Scotland.

The thing that we do know is that Andrew brought people to Jesus.

He was one of the first to follow Jesus, and when he realized that Jesus was the Messiah, he ran and got his brother Peter.

When Jesus fed the 5,000, it was Andrew who brought the young boy who had the five loaves and two fish to Jesus.

Think about that. We don’t see Andrew very much in the scriptures, but when we do, he’s bringing someone to Jesus. And I think that, right there, makes him a person worth emulating.

So, as Scots, how can we emulate St. Andrew? How can we make that tenuous connection between our heritage and this semi-mysterious saint more firm, more real?

St. Andrew brought people to Jesus. He brought his brother. He brought a lad with a small amount of food that Jesus multiplied to feed a huge crowd.

Can we be like Andrew?

What can we bring?

Well, we can bring ourselves. We can bring everything we are, including — and perhaps especially — our Scottish heritage. After all, St. Ninian made the first Christian converts in Scotland over 1600 years ago. And the Church of Scotland has existed for almost 500 years. That’s a lot of Scottish Christian heritage. And it’s a lot to live up to.

So as we have our tartans blessed this evening, let’s give some thought to what that blessing means.

A blessing doesn’t just mean we line up, we announced our clan affiliation, Fr. Petty pronounces us blessed, we have some haggis, watch the Kilties do their thing (always a pleasure, but the way), and go home feeling all Scottish and good about ourselves.

No, a blessing has some responsibility attached to it. A blessing is a way of empowering people to go out and do God’s work. When we have our tartans blessed, we are dedicating our very Scottish identity to the service of God.

So as we leave here tonight, let’s not leave the joy, the blessing here. Let’s take it out into the world. Let’s spread the blessing to everyone, whether they are Scottish or not. Let’s bring people to Jesus. Let’s feed the those who need feeding. Let’s face it, the world needs that blessing right now.

And I think St. Andrew would approve.

Amen.

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Psalm 93 ; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37

Today is the last Sunday after Pentecost. Believe it or not, next Sunday is the 1^st Sunday of Advent, beginning the new church year.

Today is also the Feast of Christ the King, where we celebrate the lordship of Christ. It’s not a very old feast, but I think it’s an important one. Maybe one of the most important feasts of the year. Our Old Testament reading is from Daniel, an apocalyptic vision of the Ancient One taking his throne and being given dominion over Creation. The Psalm is a song of the kingship of God. The second reading is from the Revelation, with God claiming to be the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end — a claim which is taken up by the Lamb at the end of the book. And the Gospel today has Jesus claiming his kingship before Pontius Pilate — a very dangerous thing to do in front of the representative of the Emperor.

 So what do we do with this “king,” this man who claims to be the Son of God and ruler of all Creation? Do we really think about what it means to say that Christ in King; that Jesus is our Lord?

One problem we have is that saying “Jesus is Lord” runs up against the assumptions we have about the way God operates in this world. We like to say “God is in control.” And while true, it can be a dangerous way to talk, because it’s really easy to use it as an excuse to be passive. To not take action. To sit back and let events take their course. To not BE the People of God. When things get scary, or hard, we can just throw ”God is in control” at it and just…let it go. And when we do that — when we use “God is in control” as a reason to sit back and just let things happen, as an excuse to not get involved, we’re giving the lie to our claim that Jesus is Lord. Because we are God’s primary instrument for action in the world

You see, being the people of God, really living into the idea that Christ IS our King, doesn’t have anything to do with being passive, with just “getting out of the way.” It means actively working to bring this world as close to Christ’s kingdom as we can.

Matthew 25 gives us, I think, the best description of what it means, on a practical level, to claim Christ as our King. Beginning in the 31^st verse:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”

Elsewhere, Jesus says,

“Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does of the will of my Father in heaven.

We cannot sit back, saying “God is in control,” and let others suffer.

When we see injustice, we must speak out.

When we see the stranger, the people that are perhaps different, the people who are “not like us” are persecuted, or simply don’t feel safe, we must speak out.

When we see the hungry, we must do what we can to feed them. We must visit the sick and the imprisoned.

What we must never ever do is look at the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, the persecuted, and say to ourselves, “God will take care of them.” We must be the God’s hands to these people. God’s love and Christ’s kingship shines through our actions, not our platitudes.

Christ is King. Let us pray that we all have the courage to make this more than just a motto. Let us pray that we all have the courage to live it.

Wisdom 1:16-2:1, 12-22; Psalm 54; James 3:13-4:3,7-8a; Mark 9:30-37

Have you ever noticed that human beings are driven to rank things? We have “Top Ten” lists for everything; songs, movies, 19th-century impressionist painters. Everybody wants to know what your favorite something-or-other is. I generally refuse to play that game, because for so many things I don’t have a favorite, and I don’t feel like I should have to pick one just to please someone else.

We even do it with each other. We don’t really need to decide who is better at one thing or another, but we always seem to want to do that. We stage expensive contests to see which sports team is the best, or which individual is the best wrestler or pole vaulter. And I think maybe we do it because deep down we really want ourselves to be the one who is best, or at least be associated with the best. Because being the best at something brings power of a sort.

And in today’s Gospel the disciples are doing just that.

Let’s build the picture just a bit. We’re at the point in Mark’s gospel where Jesus is setting his face toward Jerusalem. He’s been actively telling the disciples that he’s going to be betrayed and executed. Now, Mark is not exactly complimentary when talking about the disciples’ intellectual attainments. They just don’t get it. They don’t understand what Jesus is saying, but they’re afraid to ask him to explain. So what do they do instead while they’re traveling through Galilee?

Of course, they have an argument. About something totally different.

Jesus has evidently heard them on the road and at some point says, “Uh, hey, guys, what were you talking about back there?”

Dead silence.

The disciples are red-faced, because they’ve been talking about something they shouldn’t have been talking about. I can picture them looking at each other, nobody wanting to tell Jesus what they were doing. But evidently, he knows.

What they had been doing, in fact, was talking about which one of them was the greatest. And I can just see Jesus heaving a deep, deep sigh. And then he sits down, calls them over and tells them how the greatest will be the one who puts himself last and serves everyone else.

Evidently there are some children around. He picks one up and brings it to them, then takes the child in his arms. And he says “If you welcome a child like this in my name, you are welcoming me and the one who sent me.

Notice that Jesus is not saying here that we need to be like children – that’s in a different story — but that we need to welcome children. And he is not doing this to make the point that we should love our kids.

In the 1^st-century Roman world, children were absolutely powerless. In the Roman family, the father was all-powerful. He could do pretty much anything to his children. He could beat them if he saw fit. He could sell them as slaves. The Jewish household was different — a bit less focused on the father and more caring of their children —but this was still the world they lived in. Children were the least powerful in society, the ones with no say in anything. Jesus is saying more than that we need to welcome children. He’s saying something bigger.

Jesus is saying that we need to welcome the powerless. We need to embrace the powerless.

Last week Josh talked about rejecting power, and he was absolutely correct. Throughout his entire, Jesus rejected the use of worldly power. This week’s gospel takes it even further. Not only are we to reject power, but we are to embrace all those who, for whatever reason, are the most powerless in the world. Those who are vulnerable. Those who can’t do anything for US.

Look around at our society and think of who is without power, without a voice. Is it children? Is it the poor? The hungry? The homeless? Refugees? Those wrestling with addiction? Prisoners? Is it people whose homes are being bombed by another country?

Is it all of them?

There are plenty of people in the world who have little power to help themselves or effect ANY change in their own status.

These are the people we are to embrace. The people we are to serve.

You see, the people with power don’t need our help. Of course, it’s a natural human thing to want to do something for someone powerful to get something in return: money, recognition. And that’s how our society works. But it’s not the way for Christ-followers to build their lives, and to build the Kingdom of Heaven.

Weirdly enough, if we really want to be great in the kingdom of God, we need to give up the idea of being great. We need to get off our high horse, get down in the mud with the powerless and serve them, without any thought of gaining anything for ourselves.

“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

This is how the Kingdom of Heaven is built: by those who throw power away and do the work. The work of serving the least among us, the powerless among us. The Kingdom is built by those who don’t worry about whether or not someone deserves help. Who only see the need, and meet it.

Amen.