And we know how important, and how difficult, this particular notion is—which is one reason folks don’t clap their hands and say "Oh, goodie, another stewardship campaign, another sermon about money." Right? We know it matters, and we know it puts some pressure on us. That’s the way it is. Now, rather than try again for some magic words, I want instead to say a few basic and familiar things about stewardship and money—things that might help us become a bit more clearly focused.

First of all, I do want to say that the year coming up will be an important and a difficult one for St. Mary’s as far as money goes. Apportionment is up, insurance will be up, utilities will be up, we are including Bobbie Peter’s pension in the budget, things like that. Also, we get about 7% of our operating income from return on some investments, and that’s going down, too. Finally, I am told we are running behind in pledges, and that hurts, too. And on top of all of this, as we all know, this year has something more to it than other years. Times are uncertain, the future is hazy—there is still a drought on, and September 11^th and its various social and economic consequences have effected us both in ways that are clear, and in ways that are not. People are jumpy; and money is part of this.

So, St. Mary’s especially needs your help and support. Now is very much a time to act boldly—to act with faith, with confidence, with optimism, and with a determination to insure a bright future for our parish—for our generation and beyond. ||St. Mary’s is at a critical time. And in the eight years I’ve been here, I have never said that to you before. That’s one thing.

But, as vital as that all is, it is not the only way stewardship and money are important—and it’s not really the main thing our financial stewardship is all about. Most centrally, our giving is about our faith.

The lessons today, especially Isaiah’s harsh words and the story of Zacchaeus, remind us once again that God really does care about issues of stewardship and money; and that such matters are not at the edge of our Christian faith, but are instead at the very heart of it. As Scott McLaughlin said a couple of weeks ago—this is about how we live out our priorities; it is about what it looks like to put God first.

Still, there is a perspective in all of this that is easy to overlook—and I want to use these two readings to try to draw that out. Too often, when we think about and hear about stewardship and money, we identify at once with Isaiah’s tirade against Israel (or another one just like it)—where the prophet loudly says that the folks are no darned good, that they have messed things up pretty much totally, and that maybe, just maybe, if they are really, really, really good, God will let them off the hook. But, if you’re not really, really, really good, then for sure you’re toast. (Having said that, let’s talk about your pledge.)

Now, that is a handy way to get into things—but it also lousy theology, dishonest religion, and a bad way to use the Bible. ||To be sure, there are times when we need to hear the judgment and fury of Isaiah; but stewardship is not one of those times.

Our giving is not about that. Our giving is not about guilt or staying out of trouble with God or trying to find the one thing we can manage to do that God likes. It’s not about these things at all.

So, Zacchaeus has to decide how to live now that he has received the gift from Jesus, the gift of Jesus. In a way, at that point it didn’t much matter what he did — the gift was there. But something within Zacchaeus told him that this gift meant he was going to be different—so he changed things. He changed the way he lived, he changed the way he did his job, he changed the way he spent his money. But notice carefully that Zacchaeus wasn’t buying anything with his 50%—the gift was already given. Instead, Zacchaeus was working out how to live with the gift—how to be honest, how to give thanks.

That’s where we are with stewardship. The gifts have been given—all sorts of gifts—gifts of joy and challenge, gifts of things and gifts of love—and at the center the gift of Jesus. That’s all given. And it is good for us from time to time to reflect on just how much we have been

Stewardship—how we handle our lives and all that we have, including our money—this is about living with the gifts. It is about living with dignity and with responsibility and with gratitude and with a deep and abiding sense of what we have received.

Zacchaeus gave away a percentage of what he had—the better to connect the gift he was giving to the gift he had received. That makes sense. Still, and while I don’t think many of us are quite ready to copy exactly Zacchaeus’ 50%, we can each have our own goals. Proportional giving, giving a percentage of income, with the Biblical tithe of 10% as the goal, has always been the norm of scripture and the direction of the church. It is what I do and what I recommend.

Bit we do need to remember that giving is not buying anything. Salvation is not on sale at 10% of whatever you have. The gift is given. Jesus has called you by your name and asked you to come down out of whatever tree you were up in, and Jesus has said that he is coming home with you. Deal with it. Give thanks.

Stewardship and finances are important. They are about the life and health of our parish, and they are about our spirituality, our relationship with God.

But that is not because we have been bad and have to find a way back into God’s favor. It is because we have heard our name on the lips of Jesus and have been given the greatest gift there is. It is because we have been called by love. The rest just follows.

But the other reason is interesting. The Sadducees said that the resurrection simply did not make sense. They said that you could not think about it clearly, and that you could not understand it well enough to merit believing it. This is what’s behind the business with the woman and the seven brothers. After all, if the idea of resurrection doesn’t let you figure out as simple a point as who is married to whom, then there must be something wrong with the whole thing. This is an interesting argument because we still ask questions like this all of the time. We don’t usually ask them for the same reasons the Sadducees did—to discredit the whole idea of resurrection. We usually ask them because we care, and because we are in hope of finding some sort of answer. But our questions are still very much like those of the Sadducees.

We wonder whether, in heaven, after the resurrection, babies who died as babies will still be babies, and whether those who die at great age will be of great age, and if not, what age will they be, and for that matter, what age will we or anyone be. (By the way, in the fourth century St. Augustine worked on this question and came up with an answer that satisfied him. He decided that everyone would be 33–Jesus’ age at the resurrection.)

We also wonder whether we will recognize one another, and—at least in some cases—we wonder whether we will want to recognize one another—or at least whether we want to be recognized by everyone. No doubt, there are also many who still ask about some variations and versions of "whose wife will she be?", or "whose husband will he be?". (Which could well be connected with the issue of who we want to recognize, or not recognize, us. You ever wonder how many of those seven brothers the woman in the Gospel story really wanted to know forever?) Anyway, there are lots of other question like this, and we all have them.

What’s more, these are good questions, and it would be really handy to have answers for them. It would be really great to have knowledge, solid information, about the details and specifics, of eternal life. Reasonably enough, inquiring minds want to know.

This search for answers, this looking for knowledge that feels so much like power or control, is both very ancient and completely contemporary. Crystal balls, mediums, books about near-death experiences, the old physic channel, (remember the old physic channel?), and a goodly number of offbeat versions of the Christian faith, have all promised, and continue to promise, this sort of information. They all say, in one way or another, "We know what it is like; We know the answers, the secrets." And it would be swell to know, to have our questions answered, our doubt removed, and our uncertainties put to rest.

So, it is important to pay careful attention to what Jesus has to say to the Sadducees when they ask Him about the woman with seven husbands. After all, if we are going to get any reliable details about the hereafter, we will more likely get them from Jesus than from Shirley McLean and her friends. Besides, this is one of the very few times Jesus deals with a direct questions about this.

And what Jesus has to say to the Sadducees is fascinating. He says that the woman in the story is not going to be anybody’s wife. He said the question was silly because things will be different and people will be different. He said that we will be like angels—children of the resurrection. He said, in effect, that God would handle it just fine.

Now, think about it; is that a very satisfying answer? We don’t know what the angels are like or what they do, so we don’t know what it means, really, to say we will be like angels. We don’t know what it looks like to be children of the resurrection; so that news doesn’t help us much, either. The Sadducees came to Jesus with this great question, and Jesus simply said that’s everything was going to be fine. But we know no more about what the resurrected life is like after the Lord’s answer than we did before.

Jesus just isn’t telling. And Jesus doesn’t much want us to spend a lot of time asking, either. God can handle it just fine. That’s about as much as we are going to get.

This is important. This is central to our entire understanding of the resurrection and of hope. It is very important that we understand that our hope does not come from knowing whose wife the woman will be. Our hope does not come from knowing any details, not even from knowing answers to the best and most reasonable of questions.

Our hope comes from knowing Jesus; our hope comes only from Jesus. Our hope comes from our trust in the power and the love of God. There is no other source of real hope. Not only do we not know any of the details of the life to come, we are not ever going to know any of the details; at least not on this side of the journey.

So, we are called to hope, to real, dynamic living hope, based solely on our trust in God. We are given no specifics, no answers, no solutions, no picture postcards. Instead, with these questions, of all questions, we are called simply to surrender our demands to know and our difficulties and our logical puzzles and to trust that God will handle things better than we could figure it out; and that God’s love and care for us and for those who are dear to us will surpass all that we can ask or imagine.

We are to remember that when we die, and when those we love die, God does not die. God’s love for us, a love which has already carried us through so much, a love which has already been so gracious to us, that love does not die. That love will continue and that love will grow, and that love is what we have to rely on. (By the way, one of the things this means is that the best way to prepare ourselves spiritually for our death and for the life to come is not by taking harp lessons or by trying to figure out the details of the hereafter. The best way to prepare ourselves spiritually for our own death and the life to come is to work on trusting God more, and to practice letting go.)

This doesn’t answer the Sadducees questions or our own. We still don’t know whose wife she will be, or how old we will be, or who we will recognize, or anything like that. Again, Jesus thinks it best that we don’t know this. Instead, we are given an opportunity to trust, and we are give a chance for hope, for hope that is greater than all of our questions, for hope that is greater than we can ever imagine.

A day or two after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, I got an e-mail out of the blue, from someone that I didn’t know and who didn’t know me, but who wanted to know what a pastor thought. The E-Mail asked simply: "Do you think the end of the world is coming soon?" I never had one of those before. Then, right before the big Seventh Day Adventist convention here the first of the month, I got this little advertising flier in the mail from them talking about the place of the attacks in Bible mathematics, and in Bible prophecy. (I answered the E-mail, I missed the conference.)

The Lessons for today: Malachi 3.13--4.2a, 5-6; Palm 98; 2 Thess.3.6-13; Luke 21.5-19
 

A list of Sunday Scripture readings, with links to the Biblical Text:

Season After Pentecost

This is always a bit confusing and hard to deal with—perhaps especially today, when we hear the most powerful and the most illuminating of these ‘kingly’ moments of Jesus: the story of the crucifixion, and Pilate’s insistence that the inscription on the cross say that Jesus is the king of the Jews. What is going on in this Gospel, on this cross, is what the whole notion of Christ the King is really all about. And we almost always get it wrong.

That’s because we know that Pilate’s words, while they were meant as a joke, are in fact ironic—but we miss the real irony. We usually think that Pilate was right, that Jesus is King, King of Kings and Lord of Lords; because, secretly, Jesus always was, and still is, a king just like a real King—just like Caesar, or King Arthur, or Henry VIII, (well, maybe not Henry VIII, but still like a real king), and that we know what a real king looks like. Real kings have status, power and armies; they gain victory by destroying their enemies; and they have the ability to coerce obedience and to punish folks who break their laws.

So, we say, Pilate’s inscription is ironic because Jesus really is a king like that, like Caesar and the rest—except that he is actually a bigger and stronger and more powerful and possibly even a meaner king than any of them—but that it just didn’t show, and Pilate missed it.

So, we usually say, Pilate was wrong because couldn’t see the reality of Jesus’ stature as a king, which was hidden by the cross. The irony is that Pilate’s lack of vision causes him to make a claim that looks false, Jesus is King, but is in fact true because who Jesus actually is was hidden. That’s what we usually do with this story, and with the whole idea of Jesus being our King.

And we are so wrong. That’s not the point, and that’s not the irony, at all. In fact, that’s got it almost exactly backwards. The truth about Christ the King is not that Jesus is truly a king, a ruler, a leader, a supreme whatever, like Caesar and the rest, who was sneaky about it and it didn’t show.

Instead, the point is this: what it means to rule, what it really looks like at the very heart of creation to be king, to be the greatest and the most—what that is, is this, Jesus on the cross. Real kinship is not anything that is hidden by Jesus on the Cross; rather Jesus on the cross is the ultimate vision of real kingship. So it ends up that the joke is on us, as much as it is on Pilate. Pilate was right, Jesus is King; and what being a real king looks like is to hang on a cross and to die in pain—surrounded by enemies, and promising paradise to the justly damned. That’s really it. That’s not a symbol or a metaphor for kingship, it is the definitive instance and example of it.

Christ the King has nothing to do with Caesar, or Arthur, or Henry (thank God) or any of the Kings or leaders or success stories we know about or think about when we ponder leadership and power. Instead, it’s all about dying on a cross.

Now, we miss that most of the time. It’s hard to get hold of, it doesn’t make much sense and it can get really confusing when we try to deal with what it means to follow a king like this.

After all, that part, the following him part, is pretty much what we imagine it to be. This king demands our primary and uncompromising allegiance, loyalty, and fidelity. He demands that the laws we obey first, the values we hold as basic, and the commitments we honor above all others, come from him, and from no where else—not from our best ideas or even from common sense. All of that is there, all of that is part of Jesus being our King.

But first, before and beyond the question of allegiance and obedience, there is the business of just plain getting it, of just realizing that who Jesus is means that so many of the world’s notions of what’s important and what’s real and what things like power, victory and strength are all about, that these are just plain wrong—and so are many of our ideas about these things. Pilate was right. He is our king. And the man on the cross is what it looks like to be king. So there.

Now, a while back, I suggested that a good question to ask of any sermon is "where’s the good news in that?". Well, that’s a good question right about now. Where is the good news in this insistence that we (and everybody else) have this Christ the King thing totally backwards?

Part of the answer to that goes back to something that Soren Kierkegaard, a wonderful 19^th century Danish theologian and philosopher, once said about sin. Kierkegaard said that, at bottom, sin is always a case of mistaken identity. I very much like that. You have to think about it a bit, but it makes sense. We sin, first of all and primarily because we forget who we are, (we mistake our own identity). But there are also times when we don’t recognize who the other is, or when we get it wrong about what reality is actually like. Those mistakes of identity are what’s behind a whole bunch of what we confess and of what we regret—it’s why we so often say "I just didn’t know."

Now, sometimes, this is just because we don’t usually stop and think about stuff like what it means to be a human being, and what things like power and success and victory are, at the level of real depth that our faith insists we deal with such matters. We just assume we know it. But sometimes the problem is that, like Pilate, we do think about it, and we get it wrong. Much that is evil grows from this.

On the cross, Jesus is giving us, and our world, and our most profound notions of the way things are, a whole new identity. He is leading us down a completely different road.|| And what Jesus says is the truth. Real kings are like this. Seeing this, and trying to take it seriously, trying to find out what something like this has to say to us, this can help us with our mistakes of identity. It can help bring us some light and some direction that we can use, and that we can share. That is good news.

Much of my own struggle with the faith is right here. I am completely convinced that this is our king—this is what both power and love look like. The deeper I know this, the more I know that I and we, as his followers, are called to be a different people, and a distinctive people. But the devil, and the Lord, are both in the details. What does this mean, really? Where does it lead me, and where can it lead us? What does this reality say about our hopes, our goals, our anxieties and our fantasies I work every day on these details, and they’re still far from clear, let alone ironed out. And trying to figure this all out is so darn much fun, I want you to do it, too. Because this really matters, it makes a difference.

He is the king, he is our king. Being our King, and Lord of the universe, looks like this. And that’s good news.

And just in case we had forgotten this by the second Sunday of Advent, John the Baptist shows up to remind us. The wild man from the desert who dresses strangely and speaks the truth, still calls the church to repent. You see, the Baptist knew something we easily forget, and he saw something we often fail to see. The prophet Isaiah had seen the same thing six hundred years earlier. What they saw was this: Hope cannot be proclaimed without judgment. Hear that, hope cannot be proclaimed without judgment.

This is why we always precede our celebrations of the mighty acts of God with a time of preparation; a time of prayer and waiting, a time to watch, and a time to repent. (Advent before Christmas, Lent before Easter). This is why we say the Great Litany while the Christmas decorations go up downtown. And this is why, while the world indulges in its great annual "Christmas" frenzy, our altar is strangely shrouded in purple. We Christians know better than to pretend that God’s coming among us can fit neatly into our lives, like a piece of furniture which completes an already attractive, and almost perfectly furnished room. It doesn’t work that way.

Now, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, as they are presented in today’s Gospel, would not have understood this. They were very comfortable with the world they lived in. They were secure and respected. They had an extensive, if somewhat mechanical, religiosity; they relied upon their status, their good deeds, and their bloodlines. They even found time in their busy schedules to visit John the Baptist. But they saw no need to change. They thought it would be nice if John were right, if the messiah were at hand. But whether the messiah was coming or not, things were fine. Whether the messiah was coming or not, they were fine. They were willing to hear John’s word of hope; but they saw no need to worry about judgment. And the axe is laid to the root of the tree.

We need to notice this. As good, decent, law-abiding, tax-paying, church-going Christian folks, our constant and persistent temptations are seldom to the grand evil, to the dramatic rejection of God. Our temptations usually run along the line of accepting the legacy of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Taking it easy, playing it a little loose, leaving well enough alone, feeling just a little smug, taking ourselves and our stuff very seriously—it’s attitudes and patterns like this that tie us to that "brood of vipers". It is the little things, all together, that threaten to make us like Bethlehem—a decent little place that, unfortunately, had no room in it for the Lord to be born.

So Isaiah speaks of destruction and death before he gives his promise of a new creation. He is right. For somehow, something very important, something very powerful, must die, must be slain by the hand of the Lord, before the wolf lives at peace with the lamb, and the earth is filled with the knowledge of God. In the same way, John the Baptist calls us to repent—not just because judgment is coming, but because the kingdom is at hand.

Notice that he calls us to repent; not to reform, not to improve, not to try harder; but to repent. That’s different. To repent means to turn, to turn from looking toward the world and its way of doing things, and to turn toward Jesus Christ and his kingdom. To repent means to look elsewhere—to find direction, meaning and value in a new place.

To repent does not mean to give it our best efforts—it means to admit the futility of our best efforts. To repent means that we stop rationalizing our behavior, and begin confessing our sins. It has to do with changing our behavior, but at its heart, it is a change of perspective. Repentance is what the prophets always demand when God is about to do something wonderful: for hope cannot be proclaimed without judgment.

By the way, one of the main reasons that the secular Christmas season so often feels (and is) empty and hollow, is that the world (rather like the Pharisees, but for different reasons), wants free hope. The world wants the hope and the joy of Christmas added to our lives—just the way those lives are. The world wants the Word to become flesh without causing a ripple, without disturbing us, without changing us. It wants hope and joy without repentance or judgment. Isaiah know better, John the Baptist knows better, and so do we. God’s will is not yet done on earth as it is in heaven.

Now, to take that idea just one step farther, consider this: If God’s will is ever to be done on earth as it is in heaven, we might as well commit ourselves to begin here, with us, in this place, starting now. If there is ever, anywhere, going to be a place where lions and lambs lie down together, where God’s creatures gather, not to destroy and consume each other, but to rejoice in God and God’s gifts—then pray God let our part of that begin here, right here, among us. Then perhaps we can begin to see more clearly, and the world can see through us, that the earth is being filled with the knowledge of God, as the waters cover the sea. We can’t do it all, we can’t do it alone, but we can start.

This is part of what it means to hear the call to repent, and to begin willingly to allow the Lord to burn off some of our chaff. To do this is to begin. It is to admit that if the promise is to be lived at all, it will be lived beginning with us.

If the paths of the Lord are ever to be made straight, that will happen beginning with us. If the folks out there (or in here) are ever to see the living reality of true hope, and the fruits of real repentance, they will see them in us, or not at all. If the folks out there (or in here) are ever to know what it means to experience the forgiving, healing power of God, they will learn that from us, from our words, from our deeds, from our lives, from who we are, and from no where else. If forgiveness, mercy, compassion and love are to be the hallmarks of God’s reign, they will only be so beginning with us. If not us, who? If not now, when?

Remember, we are not called to repent just because we need to—although we do; and we do not seek God’ power to transform our lives just because it is good for us—although it is. As Christ is God’s great gift to the world, so are we to continue to be that gift, and to offer to the world the hope that is in Jesus Christ. Once more, this Advent and this Christmas, in a fundamental way, we continue God’s great gift of His son to all creation. To prepare ourselves to receive Christ is to prepare ourselves to be given away, in His name, to the world he loves. We cannot separate our salvation from our mission.

Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. And pray that God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven—beginning with us.

Most scholars agree that all of this attention to John’s lower place in the great scheme of things relative to Jesus was because there were a lot of folks at the time who thought otherwise. Even as late as when the Gospels were written, John the Baptist, beheaded or not, still had a strong following; and that following was eyeing Jesus as the Church proclaimed him, and was asking about him exactly the same question John’s disciples ask in this story, "are you the one, or should we wait for another?"

So, this is one of several stories that make the theological point that Jesus, and what Jesus did, was unique and decisive. Jesus was not just like John the Baptist or of anyone or anything else. Jesus began a new thing. The story also makes the political point that the disciples of John had better get on board with the disciples of Jesus or they would miss the whole messiah-boat completely.

And all of that is interesting and all of that is important. But in spite of this—it’s the personal part that touches me the most.

John is in prison. His hasn’t long to live, and he doubtless knows that. Such times, I understand, can focus one’s attention rather sharply. People reflect carefully on their lives; they think about what it has all meant, and they wonder whether they have accomplished anything, or made any difference.

Remember, John was a prophet; and as such he had prophesied a couple of things. One was judgment and the end of the present age. He had preached the very text of Isaiah we just heard—he had said that the desert would blossom, burning sands would become pools of water, and God’s people would know safety and peace while God’s enemies would know vengeance and a terrible recompense. The just and the faithful would triumph; and the rest would not. ||John had believed that this would happen. He had waited for this to happen, he had looked daily for this happen. That was one thing,

The other was that John had proclaimed the coming of one greater than himself – of one who would come with fire. He had preached about this new someone who would be the instrument, the man of action, of this new age, just as John himself had been its herald. John had promised that this someone would insure that the just and the righteous triumph, and the evil perish. He who would take names and he would, well, take some more names—and then he would do something about it.

And John longed to see all of that. After all, John had done his job. He had been faithful; he had spoken the truth alike to the King and to the commoner. He had fulfilled his calling with great labor and at great personal cost. He had done a huge thing for God and he knew that, and his followers knew that.

But there was a problem. So far, not one single prophesy of John had come true. Not one. The deserts were still deserts, the wilderness was still wild. The was no safety and no justice. The glory of the Lord was as hidden as it had ever been. The righteous were in trouble and the wicked were doing very well for themselves.

And there was Jesus. John had seen something special in Jesus – but Jesus remained a mystery. Remember, John was an ascetic – a sort of monk. Jesus ate and drank everything the law allowed, and was sometimes fast and loose with the rules. John demanded repentance and righteousness and he demanded them at once.

Jesus went to parties with sinners, hung around with tax collectors, and healed Gentiles. John roared hellfire and damnation. Jesus quietly told intriguing parables, and seemed more concerned with God’s love then with the wrath to come.

So Jesus was troubling for John; he was not doing what who John expected him to do. And not one thing that John had prophesied about Jesus had obviously happened, either. There was no fire—no winnowing fork, no security for the faithful, no fiery destruction for the chaff.

So John, reflecting on his life and wondering whether he had done anything worthwhile or had made a difference, sent word to Jesus and asked, "are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" Among other things, John was having a leaky "What about me value", like in the cartoon in the bulletin. John not only wanted to know if he had been right, or if he had wasted his time, but he also, I suspect, wanted to know if Jesus was, somehow or another, going to get him out of prison.

What Jesus says in response to John’s question is fascinating. First of all, Jesus seems strangely unconcerned about John’s plight, or about his future. He says wonderful things about John, but not the things John would most like to hear. Instead, Jesus tells John, in effect, that what John wants to know is right in front of him. If he will look at what’s happening – and really notice what reality is like, then he will see his answer. ||But notice carefully that John will not find his answer by looking at himself, or by looking at what is happening to him, or by looking for what John had wanted, and hoped for and preached about.

That is what makes this question, and Jesus’ answer, one of the great Advent moments of the Bible. In the coming of Jesus, God is doing something new and different. In Jesus, something is going on that is God’s own great work of love.

Now, I say this next part with some reservation, and with some trepidation. But it is very important to what Advent and Christmas are really all about. The great gift that God offers us in Jesus is not really about us. It is for us, but it is not about us. It’s not about what we think or what we want. It is God’s own thing. It is not about what I desire, or what I plan, or what I predict, or what I hope for, or what will make me feel the way I want to feel. God’s gift to us at Christmas, God’s gift of Jesus, is God’s own thing for us—and it is not about us or our issues.

That is what Jesus was telling John the Baptist. Jesus said to John, and to all of us, that the kingdom is all around you, but it isn’t about you; instead, it is for you in only and exactly those ways God thinks most important—regardless of what John the Baptist or anybody might have on their Christmas list. John had to surrender himself, he had to tighten up his "what about me valve", in order to see the outbreak of the Kingdom of God, in order to embrace the new thing that was happening to him and to all of creation in Jesus. He simply had to leave his stuff behind, and look around at what was left, and then decide whether Jesus really was the one, or whether he had to wait for another.

So do we. We have to decide. Our Advent moments come as we try to absorb this new thing that God is doing, and at the same time to let go of, or at least begin to loosen, our vise-like grip on our own perspective, our own desires, our own notions of how things ought to be.

But that way lies life, and that way lies joy, and that way alone lies hope. The gift of Jesus is for us, it’s not about us. It is better. It is God’s own thing. Thanks be to God.

The Bible doesn’t say much about Joseph. Almost all we know about him is found in these few verses. But they say a great deal—the Greek really helps us here. First, they say that Joseph was of the house of David. That means that his family was a proud and ancient one—a sort of Israelite equivalent of coming over on the Mayflower. Joseph may not have had much, but he did have this, and it was important. That meant he carried a very special responsibility to uphold the reputation and distinction of that most honored of Israelite families.

And keeping the law limited who Joseph could associate with, and how he could operate his business, and what he could and couldn’t do. He had to make some real personal and financial sacrifices in order to be righteous, in order to maintain the honor of his heritage. So we know his religion was important to him—that he would do what was right even if it cost.

We know that about Joseph, and we know that he was betrothed to Mary. This translation says ‘engaged’, and I don’t like that. It’s not really the same. A betrothal was much more than our notion of an engagement. Indeed, it was barely less than a marriage. So, Joseph was betrothed to Mary and she was found to be with child. And the first time Joseph heard that, it was not good news.

Remember, Joseph was a just man, a man who obeyed the law. So he looked to the law at this time of crisis and personal disaster. And the law gave Joseph some very clear directions. In such a situation, the law said, the betrothal was terminated. This could not be done without a divorce. There was no choice there. In fact, the only choice the Law gave Joseph was what type of divorce to get. There were two possibilities.

The first was to denounce Mary publicly and so bring ruin and shame to her and her family. (Actually, the Law of Moses called for Mary to be stoned to death, but the Romans had put an end to that.) The second option was to confront her privately, before only two witnesses, and send her on her way. Joseph was a righteous man, he obeyed the law. But he choose the kinder option. He resolved to divorce her quietly. Remember, the decision to divorce Mary was not a selfish or an arbitrary one; it was the only choice the law offered. That was all the Law or the Prophets had to say about Mary or her child.

So Joseph went to sleep one night disappointed and hurt, but knowing what he had to do. He was secure in the rightness of his decision.

Matthew’s Gospel makes what happened next sound so simple and so easy. An angel of the Lord appeared in a dream and said to him, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit". As if that settled the matter.

Think about it. How much would you risk for one dream; no matter how clear? How many of your beliefs, how much of your common sense, your understanding of biology, and your own pride would you put on the line based on a passing whiff of the presence of God—on a sudden flash of new light? Think about that. The dream was not a stroke of good luck. The dream made everything worse. Joseph obeyed the Law, and the Law didn’t say ‘divorce her unless you have a dream.’ The Law said, ‘divorce her’. Period.

Today it all seems so obvious. But there was no way that Joseph could have understood what was going on. He only knew that God seemed to want him to do the unthinkable, to violate the Law; and to do this for reasons that were totally incomprehensible. Besides all that, Joseph had his good name and the good name of his family to think about; and ‘the neighbors’ could count backwards from nine just as easily then as they can now.

Matthew doesn’t tell us about the struggle that Joseph went through. There is no record of his uncertainties, or his confusion. We have to imagine that. It isn’t hard.

But we do know what finally happened. Joseph did as the Angel of the Lord commanded. He did not fear to take Mary as his wife. He choose to take the risk, to be open to something totally new; to let go of everything he had considered permanent, and right, and good. That was doubtless very hard. I think Joseph had to have known God pretty well to realize that this was exactly the sort of thing God was likely to do.

There is something else. "And he called the child’s name Jesus." Joseph did that. Joseph named the child. This naming was a formal, legal action—an action that acknowledged the legitimacy of the child in the eyes of the community and of the Law. It was an action that meant that the child was, in every way that mattered, Joseph’s son. That naming made Jesus Joseph’s heir, and so a descendant of the House of David according to the flesh.

There was no room for Jesus in the Law, just as there was no room in the Inn. Joseph made that room. He gave up enough, so there was room. He took some big chances for Jesus, and he gave the child all that he had to give.

And this, we say, is important. It is important enough to affect our schedules and our priorities, to insure that we are here, and not somewhere else. It is, we say, so important that we number our calendars to record the years of this age beginning at the event we celebrate tonight. And so we proclaim both that creation itself somehow began anew at Bethlehem, and that things have never been the same since. This celebration is so important that we do it, over and over, year in and year out, and yet we love it more, and we are neither bored, nor unmoved.

But consider this: Nothing that exists totally in the past can be this important. The power of the birth in Bethlehem must also be a present reality if it is to be of more than antiquarian or sentimental value. The world has never been the same since that first Christmas, not only because of what this birth did to the world—but especially because of what it does to us, to our generation, as to every generation that has gone before, in all the years of this age.

Remember, Bethlehem was no different the day after Christmas. The streets were not any cleaner, the stables did not smell any sweeter, the occupying army of Rome and its supporters were no nicer. Life went on as usual—groping in darkness, unaware that a new light had begun faintly to shine. Tonight, we are not invited to Bethlehem to watch that manger change into a royal suite fit for a king. We are not invited to Bethlehem to see that town transformed into a Norman Rockwell picture of beauty of peace. We are not even invited to Bethlehem, primarily, to hear angels sing or to watch shepherds act in unusual ways.

As much as we would sometimes wish it otherwise, it is not the world out there that is visibly changed, not at the first Christmas and not at this one. Tonight we are invited to Bethlehem so that what happened there once, can happen again, here, within us. If Jesus is to be born anywhere tonight, he will be born once more within us. If the manger is to continue to change the world—and if it still makes sense to count our years from this event—then this is because we will again re-create, in our lives and in our world, the life of Jesus Christ. This is our sacred calling.

This is why we are gathered. Not primarily to remember something old—but to begin something new.

For that new thing to begin, we need to hear something more, than what the angels said to the shepherds—we need to hear something that God says to us, and for us. After all, we stand on the other side—the other side both of Bethlehem and of Golgotha. So, we need to hear what God first said to all humanity at this birth—what God continues to say, today, to each and every one of us, to us personally, and to all who will hear. We need to hear God’s word from the manger.

From this manger God is saying this to you and to me—God is saying "Today I choose you, I choose to be with you". Of all of creation God has looked upon humanity and said of us "this, I choose to make my own; to join with my life." To our flesh and to our nature, to our weakness and to our joys; to our pain and to our pleasure, to our life and to our death, God has said, "I am for this"; "I take this as my own, forever and eternally." ||All that it means to be human is now eternally joined with God. This is what God declares to us tonight. Earth and heaven are joined, the divine becomes human with all the glory, noise and fanfare of a gentle hint. And God presents this gift to us in the transparent helplessness of a child. And we are not alone, and our lives are ever joined to the life of God.

"From this day forth", God says to us at Christmas; "nothing that is human will ever be alien to me". To be chosen by God to be his own does not diminish either God or us—it exults both. For in this God says to us that we are so precious to him that he will not only put up with us and care about us,—but he will share our lives fully and completely.

This is the great "Yes" of God that thunders so softly through creation every Christmas. And for us to hear that radical, incredible total "Yes" of God’s love is our first step in keeping Bethlehem real.

To hear this is often not easy—and to believe it is even harder. To take seriously the infant we worship tonight—to believe what God says from the manger—this means that we are called to see ourselves in a new way. Our humanity—our human-ness—with all of its messiness and meaning and weakness and ambiguity, this humanity is what God chose for himself, this is what the Word of God has become.

In the midst of an anxious world rife with war and the rumor of more war, in the quiet darkness of our personal pain and sin, into that anxiety and darkness comes the light from the manger, a light that says, "I am for you," I am with you", "I have made you my own".

To allow the depth and scope of God’s love really to sink into us, down to our bones, to do this can be transforming: is to live filled at the same time with both awe and some peace, with judgment and salvation, with joy and with fear. To believe this is both to begin to see creation with Thanksgiving, and to discover the power to reach beyond ourselves joyfully. To believe this makes it possible for Jesus once more to be born—and for that birth to make a difference. It is to take the first step in re-creating Christ’s life in our own generation, and for our own generation.

For to us a child is born—and for us a son is given. In the flesh and weakness of a child God’s great "Yes" of love is spoken again to a world desperately hungry for that Word, spoken again to individuals lost in the darkness of their own despair, and spoken again to the Church—to the Church which is called to hear the truth of that word, called to accept the love of that word, and called to proclaim and to share the power of that word.

To hear, to accept, and to share what God is saying from the manger—this is why we are here. And the news we are given is Good News, the love we are offered is real love, and the life we are called to live is life in abundance.

Come, let us adore him.

The more I think about that, the better I like it. So today, on the first time the Epiphany has come on Sunday for eleven years, I want to talk about why, for all practical purposes, the Wise Men really did come from England.

It’s a wonderful story, isn’t it, this tale of the Magi—the sorcerers—from the mysterious east. They chose to follow a new light, and they had exciting adventures. They worshiped the newborn Lord that no one else had noticed; and they found that their sleeping as well as their waking hours were filled with the presence of a God whom they had not known. Such a deal. And today we have a chance to put these figures in their proper place in the crèche.

After all, the manger scene is not completed, the Christmas story is not fully told, until these have joined the rest. You see, without these figures, we are not in Bethlehem. More than anyone else in the crèche, these figures represent us.

They do this in a couple of ways. First of all, as Matthew implies, the visit of the Magi is a sign of the fact that Jesus is the not only the messiah of the Jews, he is also savior of the whole world.

By their worship of Jesus, and by the offerings they bring, the Magi reveal the universal nature of the Christian faith. They show that Jesus is for all people, Gentile and Jew. In Jesus, all of the world’s ways of separating and dividing people are overcome; and all of humanity has the same thing in common.

Now, each and every one of us is (I think) a Gentile. That is, we were not born as Jews. That’s why the Wise Men need to be in the crèche—so that we can be in the crèche. They had to come from the East, from our East, from England and parts like that, just like most of us did. This is one way they stand for us.

The other way is a little more complex, but it is just as important. The quest of the Magi reveals something very central to our own lives, and to our own faith. From the earliest days of the people of God, going all the way back to Abraham, the predominate image of the faithful life, of what life with God is like—has been that of a journey—The Magi represent us not only because they came from where we came from, somewhere besides Israel, but also because they first did what we have all done—what we are doing at this very moment. They took a journey, a sacred journey, toward the light.

Think about it. To be adrift in a foreign land, not quite sure where the present path is leading, and only vaguely aware of the nature of the destination—much of the time this is a pretty good picture of the spiritual life, of life lived in God.

Like the Magi, we are on a journey—and what’s more, their journey and ours not only have the same destination, but they share some of the stops along the way.

First of all, there is Herod, the evil king. The problem with Herod was that, as far as he was concerned, he had arrived; as far as he was concerned, his journey was over. After all, he was king, the very top of the heap. So what consumed him was not the desire to move closer to the light; what consumed him was the need to protect what he had. So he lied, and he deceived, and he schemed and he shed innocent blood—all because he knew that there could never be two rulers over the same land, or over the same heart.

And we know about Herod. We know what it’s like to be torn between keeping what we have, and letting go of that and moving toward the light. We know the lengths that we will sometimes go to in order to hold on, to stay in charge, and to protect ourselves. And sometimes we also know what it is like to be the victim of that. On our journey, sometimes we meet Herod, and sometimes we are Herod.

Then there are the Chief Priests and Scribes of the people. These were the full-time religious, the ones who read the books and knew the answers. Their wisdom was real, and from God. But notice that, while they gladly answered the king’s questions, they never left their comfortable rooms next door to the palace. They never began their own journey. They knew much about the light, but they never knew the light.

That can be familiar, too. After all, in many ways we are not pagan astrologers following a hunch. We know the truth. We have the word and the sacraments; the Church and the Prayer Book. We know about this stuff; we know about Jesus. But by itself that will not do. By itself, without a serious journey of the spirit and a real binding of the heart, our knowledge is an empty promise. We can sit comfortably and give all of the right answers, and still not know the light.

Finally there is the manger, the child, the moment of recognition and of joy and of rejoicing. There finally came a time in their journey when, for a moment at least, everything else vanished and the Magi simply fell down and worshiped. For a while it was all worth it and nothing else mattered.

And we know about that, too. Maybe we know about it because we have been there, maybe we know about that be cause we can smell it and taste it and know it still up ahead of us, and maybe we just hope and continue. But we know about that, too. So there is hope, and promise.

But notice that this moment of clarity and worship is not the end of the journey. It is the goal, but not the end. The Magi’s journey continued, suddenly in a different direction. Somehow, that same light that drew them to Bethlehem is still leading and they go on by a different way.

So with us. The central issue with our journey is not that we arrive—that we get somewhere so we can stop. That is not what this life is for. Our journey will continue. Those times of grace and clarity when we, like the Magi, are able to kneel in wonder do not mean that we are through. They mean both that we have been given a gift, and that we are about to be sent by a different way.

The wise men really were from England, or from wherever we are from. In them, and in their journey, we can see ourselves, and we can hear the promise that our journey, like that of the first Gentiles to seek Jesus, will be both toward God and with God, and that as we move forward, we will find our lives enriched, protected, and opened to new possibilities.

Epiphany I, January 13, 2002

There is a wonderful Navaho insult that is well worth noting and remembering. When you want to speak of someone with scorn and with disdain, you say that the person: "Acts like he has no relatives." That is one of the worst thing you can say about somebody–that they act like they have no relatives.

Both John the Baptist and Jesus would have understood this saying perfectly and instantly, and I think it provides a good way into both the difficult story of the Baptism of Jesus; and the meaning of our own baptism.

Now, the Baptism of Jesus by John is one of the historically most certain events in the New Testament. It’s in all four Gospels, and it has been part of the Church’s tradition from the very beginning. At the same time, it is clear that all four Gospels writers are pretty uncomfortable with it. Remember, during the first several years of the Church’s life, there were still plenty of followers of John the Baptist around, and there was competition between them and the followers of Jesus. So the early church would have been tickled pink if Jesus–who, remember, was seen as without sin—had not been baptized by John the Baptist in a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

But He was, and everyone knew it, and everyone knew that the baptism was how Jesus began His public ministry. So all of the Gospel writers had to tell the story–even though it raised problems about Jesus and John and Jesus and repentance and Jesus and sin and all of that. You can almost hear the Gospel writers asking "How in the world would Jesus be baptized by anybody–let alone by John the Baptist?" It was almost like Col. Sanders doing a commercial for McDonald’s.

Well, I think the answer to that has to do with Jesus realizing both that He had relatives and who those relatives were—and then acting like it.

You see, John the Baptist, like all the prophets before him, did not preach repentance primarily to individuals—to Joe and Sam and Sally and Sue: He preached repentance to Israel, to the community that God had created and loved and called to be His own. Israel had sinned, Israel had abandoned its mission, Israel had forsaken the Lord, and Israel needed to be renewed in order to be prepared for what God was doing. So John preached his call to baptism and repentance to Israel—just like Isaiah and Jeremiah and the rest had done. Sure, in one sense, only individual people could hear and respond; but these individual people knew that they were who they were, first and foremost, because they were part of Israel. And, they heard and responded first and foremost, as part of Israel—and only in a secondary sense as individuals distinct from that.

This is, I think, one of the keys to Jesus’ decision to be baptized. Standing on the bank of the Jordan river and making choices about his life and his ministry, Jesus almost certainly didn’t ask the same sort of questions we ask, and he almost certainly didn’t worry about the same things the early church worried about. He wasn’t concerned about whether he had done anything that was so bad that he needed to be baptized; nor was he concerned about whether he or John the Baptist was really the top dog in the Messiah-business. Instead, in choosing to be baptized, Jesus was, among other things, saying something like this: He was saying—"I am a part of Israel, a community that desperately needs to repent and to submit to a baptism for forgiveness of sins: for this reason, I repent, and for this reason I submit to this baptism." He was identifying himself with his community, and committing himself to it—warts and all.

And he was also doing something more. By identifying completely with the people of Israel, with the sin and repentance of Israel, and so joining with the baptism of Israel, Jesus also accepted and made his own the mission of Israel—the calling of God’s people—a mission to live the life of God, and to reveal to the world the nature of God, the values of God, and the heart of God.

In other words, Jesus’ baptism wasn’t just about him; indeed it wasn’t mainly about him. It was a decision on his part to join himself to his community, and to define his life and his ministry in terms of that community. And this isn’t true only of Jesus, this was a basic part of what John the Baptist was talking about, and demanding that all of the people who paid attention to him do. It’s certainly no coincidence that many of Jesus’ first followers started out as followers of John; they understood that they couldn’t just repent and go home as if nothing had happened. Lots of things had to change—Israel had to change—that was part of what their repentance meant. It was not just for them, but it was for their community and its mission.

Now, this is hard for us. We do not easily see ourselves this way. Our modern age and culture have little sympathy for such a perceptive. It is automatic for us to assume that we are individuals first, and anything else begins as a distant second. We pretty much like to think that we have no relatives, or at the most very few. So we figure that what we do and what we choose is pretty much about us, and about us alone.

But baptism isn’t like that. Our baptism, like Jesus’, is not just about us. It is not just about being forgiven, or getting saved, or hearing God say nice things to us. It is about all of that, to be sure, but those things are the beginning, the starting point, not the final and deepest heart of the matter. The heart of the matter of our baptism, like Jesus’, is that we have all sort of relatives.

We are related first to Jesus, as the primary relationship of our lives; but it doesn’t stop there—because through Jesus, we become part of the whole Church, of the mystical communion of the baptized, in heaven and on earth. And there is more. By virtue of the mission of the church, we are related, we are bound in love in service, to all of humanity, to everyone with whom we share the created image of God, to everyone for whom Christ died. It isn’t just about us.

Right now we will renew our Baptismal covenant, and again re-affirm the central commitments of our lives as Christian people. As we do this, as we, in our own way, join Jesus on the bank of the Jordan river,| listen carefully to what we say, and notice, in the vows we make, how little of what we promise has to do with just our own lives, with just our own being good, or even with just our own personal salvation. Notice how much of it is about having relatives, about being related one to another and with all of God’s people. Jesus walked into that river because he had chosen all of these relationships, and because he was committed to living out, in all of his life, the ministry that came with them. We do the same thing.

Turn to page 292 for the renewal of Baptismal Vows.

Now this business of being called is a tricky and an important thing. It is easy to get confused about it, especially the way we use the word these days. We tend to equate being called with doing some specific thing—usually a pretty major thing. We talk of being called to be ordained, or called to a special, and generally full-time and professional, form of ministry or service, or called to a major change in our lives or our work.

And we usually stop there; that is all we do with being called. So, most of us can listen to Isaiah and Paul talk about call and neatly separate what happened to them from what is going on with us. "After all, they were called; we’re just ordinary people." So we are safe from that. Calls happen to someone else.

I have a special interest in all of this because, for the last twenty years or so, I have served on the Commission on Ministry in three dioceses in a row. As you know, one of the things Commissions on Ministry do is interview people who want to be ordained. It was not that long ago that we interviewed Janice, Connie, and John. Very few of the folks we interview—folks who have found themselves led toward ordained ministry, have had anything like the sort of intense, clear and absolutely overpowering religious experience that Isaiah and Paul talk about, or that we, and they, so often imagine is always a part of a call from God.

So they really struggle with the whole idea of call and they just dread talking to the Commission because they know we’re going to ask them about it—and they all think they ought to have a better answer than they do.

So, even for these folks, deep in the Ordination process, the idea of a call from God seems somehow distant, somehow something that happens to someone else, even if should happen to them.

One of the big reasons for all of this confusion is that we have managed to miss the main point by paying too much attention to smaller points. I am quite convinced that there is such a thing as a special call to Ordained ministry or to a particular type of service, like monasticism or mission work—although most of the time such calls look very different from what we expect or imagine. We have some of that right here among us. But that is not how the word "call" is used in the Bible; and that is not what is usually going on with us when God calls us.

The New Testament makes it very clear that there is really only one call from God. You have heard it. The call Andrew and John heard in the Gospel today is exactly the call that God has made to you. Exactly. It is the call to be a disciple, to follow. That is the call that comes first. That is the call that matters the most. That is the call that each of us knows in one way or another. Sometimes quiet and hidden, sometimes insistent and bothersome; sometimes easy to ignore and explain away, sometimes a constant judgment that hangs over all of our lives—we know that call. It is the faint barking of the hounds of heaven that can become audible at the darndest times. We might not know what to do with it, but we know it. And there really is only one. It is the breath of God on our neck.

I want to say two things about that call this morning. First of all, and here is where we so easily get off track, God’s call to us is not first or primarily a call to a task, to a job. The call of Jesus to each of us, first and primarily, is a call to relationship. The first thing Jesus said to Andrew was not "go do this". It was "come and see", it was "follow me". There is a big difference.

The most important steps we take with God are not toward a task, they are toward a person. I suspect that one of the main reasons the idea of call is so difficult for us is that when we sense a tug that might be from God, we immediately start expecting and looking for some major noises about something we are supposed to do, something we are supposed to accomplish, when that’s not the point at all.

In a recent article, Frank Griswold, Our Presiding Bishop, talks about what the call from God has been like in his life. To paraphrase slightly, the Presiding Bishop says, "over the years I have come to the conclusion that Christ is calling me not simply for what I do but to be a companion, someone who in a deep and intimate way travels with him. In that way, Christ allows his life to become my life, his hopes and desires for the world to become my hopes and desires. In that way Christ is calling me to be a faithful and intimate companion." I like that.

To be called into relationship—to be called to follow as a disciple, as a faithful companion—that is to enter a mystery; that is it is make a person, not a task, the most important thing; that is to replace need to succeed with the desire to be faithful. This is what the call, any call, from God is primarily all about. No amount of work, however good and valuable that work might be, can ever replace this intimacy and shared life. And, nothing that we accomplish, no matter how important, will satisfy us at that level of depth where our greatest emptiness lies, unless it grows from this relationship with God,

We are, each one of us, called by God just as Isaiah and Paul and Andrew were called. And, like them, we are called first to relationship. We are called first to come and see, to be held in the hand of the Father. This is the heart of our call. That’s the first point.

The second point is just that there will be plenty to do. That will come—probably sooner than we want. Our call to relationship will lead us somewhere, and there is no telling in advance where that may be.

For most of us, most of the time, we are led deeper and differently into where we already are. But sometimes we end up going somewhere else. Sometimes there is a new task, sometimes old things are transformed. There is no telling.

The call to Jesus will always, in one form or another, find expression in ministry. We don’t need to worry about that—it will happen. But the call comes first. There can be no real, abiding, and sustaining ministry without relationship with Christ, without obedience to Him as he calls us to himself.

It all begins with a call, the call we all know. The rest will follow.

Yet we proceed: We proceed with confidence and we proceed with faith—faith in one another, in the resilience and strength of our nation’s basic institutions, and, above all, with faith in God’s constant goodness and ultimate victory. A look at parish life over the last year, and at the course we have set for St. Mary’s for the years ahead, reveals in a powerful way the faith, the confidence, the commitment, and the energy of this wonderful place.

Last year in this report I talked about how, as a parish, we have been moving ever deeper—deeper into our life in Christ, and deeper into our personal and corporate engagement with our faith. That movement has continued as our Christian formation programs such as Sunday School, Youth Activities, Adult Education, EFM and Confirmation.COM, have all become stronger and more mature, and have all continued both to grow and to and build up our parish and its people. And I simply can’t talk about any of this without a special word of thanks to Barbara Harris, our absolutely splendid Sunday School coordinator, Charla Lewis, who Coordinates Confirmation.COM, and Teresa Sheppard for her special help with our young people.

As we go deeper, as we come to discover and engage our Christianity in ways new, challenging, and enriching, then something else is never far behind: that is ministry and mission. It is simply impossible to go very far into our faith without finding ourselves drawn outward, into service and caring, to those whom our Lord calls us to love.

I want to talk for a minute about two very exciting directions we are going in this area of mission. The first began last summer when the Vestry decided it was time to do some careful and intentional planning about parish mission. At our request, Bishop Ohl led us in an overnight retreat in Lubbock that focused on vocation, gifts, and the call to mission and service. It was a helpful and challenging time; and we left committed to look intentionally, seriously and prayerfully for those things which God will have us do and be in and for St. Mary’s and Big Spring.

Since then, the Vestry has been working on this in a number of ways, including some special meetings and the formation of new committees dedicated to different aspects of this project.

At the same time, our Adult Sunday School Class spent much of the Fall studying many of the facets of ministry and ministry discernment for parishes. We looked at both Anglican and parish identity, local demographics, cultural trends in terms of the Church and its mission, and several related topics.

Our special guest and helper will be Ms Angela Hock, from Trinity Church in Midland. Angela is a very able and experienced leader in projects like this, and she will help us focus and move forward. But the real work will be up to us.

I am convinced that the next several months will bring us new directions both for outreach and for such things as a more focused ministry to newcomers, the unchurched, and more. And that is exciting, and that is going to be both good for us, and a lot of fun. By the way, Angela has asked something of us in preparation for our "Mission In Action" day. She has asked that each of us pray daily for the event, and for right and clear guidance from God as we approach this time. There is simply no healthy way to grow in mission, in love and service, that is not rooted in growth in prayer and worship. To separate these is to impoverish them all. I echo Angela’s request, and ask from you both your prayers for and your presence at this important day.

That’s the first thing going on. The second is like unto it, and very closely related. As you know, at our next Diocesan Convention this October, God willing, Janice Byrd, Connie Fowler and John Marshall will be Ordained to the Sacred Order of Deacons. The date is Sunday, October 27^th. I am delighted that Convention will be in Odessa, and I hope and expect that most of us will be able to make it to the Ordination.

The parish has been wonderfully supportive as these three have woven their way through the Church’s process toward Ordination; and I am confident that St. Mary’s will continue to support them as they conclude that process and begin their ordained ministry.

As I have said before, the primary task of the Diaconate is to provide special leadership to the Church as it moves outward in ministry and mission. The renewal of the Diaconate at St. Mary’s is not primarily about the three new Deacons; that is not the heart of the issue.

The renewal of the Diaconate at St. Mary’s, like the new directions in mission the Vestry is leading us toward, is about us—about each of us personally, and about us as a parish. Together, these two developments will be an important part of our parish’s life in the years ahead as we reach out to our Lord to serve him in all those he sends our way. I am delighted at both of them.

Now, along these same lines, I do want to mention a delightful little movement that has just about completely swept through the parish. The best I can remember, it started a few years back when the Brotherhood of St. Andrew decided that at least 10% of any and all the money it raised would be used for some sort of outreach—for the parish, the community or the world. Soon, the young people of the parish made a similar commitment. Last year, the Vestry voted to set aside 10% of all undesignated special income to outreach beyond the parish. The ECW has also made this commitment. (It wasn’t my suggestion in any of these places.) Folks, this is a wonderful little snapshot of our hearts getting bigger, our vision getting broader, and our arms reaching out wider than ever before. We are growing, gradually yet persistently, into the mind of Christ, and I rejoice in this with you.

Yet this discussion of mission, as heartening as it is, does not exhaust either the accomplishments of the year just past, or the possibilities of the one now beginning.

2001 had many other highlights. Primary among them is our expanding music program, which is a wonderful gift, not only within our worship, but also through our increasingly popular community music series during Advent and Easter. Linda Hill, our choir, and the many musicians who give so much are to be deeply commended.

Also, our St. Mary’s Day tribute to Bobbie Peters will always be a highlight not only of last year, but of many, many years. We owe so much to Bobbie for her decades of faithful service that it was a real joy to have the opportunity to gather to say ‘thank you’.

Also of important note is St. Mary’s constant and faithful participation in the Episcopal Cursillo and community Walk to Emmaus renewal movements. We have had parishioners both on team and as Candidates in recent Cursillos and Walks, and next weekend five of us from St. Mary’s will be serving on the team of Women’s Walk #27. This year the Big Spring Emmaus community will be holding its monthly gatherings here at St. Mary’s—which makes for a very busy second Thursday each month. But it is good for us, and for our involvement in Big Spring’s other Christian communities.

Under the watchful eye of Jr. Warden Ed Kerley and the Vestry, our physical plant continues to be exceptionally well maintained. At the same time, through the work of a number of parish volunteers coordinated by Linda Hill (and with the able assistance of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew), our landscaping, most conspicuously the Bennett Garden, continues to be beautifully cared for. Many thanks to all who have made that possible.

This has also been a year of good financial news. The Stewardship Program, most ably coordinated by Scott McLaughlin, was marked especially by two things. First was the prompt and generous response of the parish to the campaign—and we are deeply grateful for that. Second was the world debut of the St. Mary’s Band, the Merry Strummers. Both on its own and with our Bishop sitting in, the band was a great addition to the Stewardship Dinner, and I am looking forward to their next gig at the Shrove Tuesday supper.

Also last year, the parish received a generous bequest from the estate of Mary Gilmore, for many years a parishioner here. The Vestry designated the bulk of that bequest for our Endowment Fund, and I want to use this grateful acknowledgment of that generous gift to do two things: First, to remind you of the importance of the Endowment Fund to the present and the future of St. Mary’s: It is vital to our life and ministry. Second, to quote you a bit of the Prayer Book, which directs the Rector to instruct the congregation, from time to time, of the duty "of all persons to make wills, while they are in health, arranging for the disposal of their temporal goods, not neglecting, if they are able, to leave bequests for religious and charitable uses." We all need to keep that in mind.

In a related vein, the parish Columbarium is scheduled to arrive Thursday morning. The option of burial on the Church grounds is an ancient one for Christians, and is especially a part of our Anglican tradition. I encourage you to consider making use of this new opportunity for witness and stewardship.

In other areas: 2001 has also been a year of growth and expansion for St. Mary’s School.

This year, after a careful and thorough search, the School Board and Vestry (very wisely I think) called Ms Beverly Alford to be the new Head of School. Beverly is doing a wonderful job for us, and I look forward to many years of association. Also, this year, for the first time in its history, St. Mary’s School has added a sixth grade. And, just to make sure it got off to a glorious start, our own Nancy Fulgham is teaching the class.

There is more good news: St. Mary’s Episcopal Retirement Homes, our Canterbury, continues to thrive, and to offer a unique, compassionate, and ably administered ministry to Big Spring. Jo Anne Hyer and her staff do an excellent job, and you need to know that our project is often held up as a model not only in Texas, but beyond.

Just a couple of personal notes in closing. The first, is a very heartfelt thank-you to our Vestry and especially to Roe Fulgham and Ed Kerley, the Wardens of St. Mary’s. Both are extraordinary men, deeply committed to our parish, and as hard-working a team as I have ever served with. Your Wardens and Vestry work very hard, and they are essential to all the successes we have had. You need to know that.

And I do want to say once again that it is a joy and an honor to serve among you as your Rector. My ministry here is delightful and rewarding; as are my involvements in our Diocese, our community, and our larger church. In that regard, I do want to mention that, at the last Diocesan Convention, I was elected first Alternate Deputy to the triennial General Convention of the Episcopal Church. So I will be attending Provincial Synod in Kansas City next Fall, and the 74^th General Convention in Minneapolis in August of 2003. I am very much looking forward to this opportunity, and I expect we will all be learning a lot more about General Convention in the months ahead.

Next month, Kathleen, Will and I begin our ninth year in Big Spring, and we look forward to many more. St. Mary’s is a wonderful community, rich in faith, generous in spirit, committed in service, compassionate in concern, and growing in all sorts of ways. I have the best job in the Church; and I look forward to sharing that call with you for many years to come.

God bless you,

The Rev. James Liggett, Jr.

Rector

Matthew’s telling of the beatitudes, which we just heard, fits right in with this. After all, the purpose of the beatitudes is to shed some new light on an old subject. But the problem with this is that we have trouble getting hold of what that subject is—of what the beatitudes are really all about. Without that, it is easy to misunderstand these powerful sayings.

For example, it is all too easy to imagine that the beatitudes are about us; that they are commands for how we should live, and what we should do. So we imagine that Jesus is giving us, or at least giving some of us, specific orders; that he is saying ‘go out there and get yourselves poor in spirit’, or ‘learn how to mourn’, or ‘meek up your act’, or whatever. Although, come to think of it, I’m not really sure how to do any of those things.

Anyway, if this is what he is up to, Jesus is pretty much wasting His time. Have you noticed that advice like this, whether given by Jesus or anybody else, seldom does much more than make us frustrated and guilty? We might think that it would be sweet or something to be, say, poor in spirit; but it is pretty unlikely we would set out to do it. Bedsides, does being poor in spirit, or morning, or meekness count if you do it on purpose in order to get rewarded? That hardly seems right.

The harder you try to make these odd sayings into wise advice, the less sense they make. What’s more, did you notice that nowhere in the beatitudes is there a command or directive—to us or to anybody?

Nowhere does Jesus use the imperative, nowhere does he give any orders or requirements. The entire section is in the indicative. Jesus is simply describing reality, he is not tell the disciples, or us or anybody else, to do anything.

But if Beatitudes are not about us, if they are not a set of orders on how we should live, or what we should do, then what are they about? If they don’t shine any light on how we are supposed to behave, what are they for?

One other candidate for this has been the world. That is, the beatitudes have been presented as ways for folks to get ahead in the world; or at least as ways that should help people get ahead in the world. We have been told that if we would only be meek, or peacemakers, or merciful, or whatever, that will bring out the best in others and they will be better because of it. So, sooner or later, the whole world will end up being a much nicer place for all involved; and we will somehow come out on top in the long run. (Today’s Psalm seems to suggest something rather like this.) The beatitudes become a handy tool, a cosmic way to win friends and influence people; one more secret of success.

The problem with this, of course, is that it is just plain silly. You can only believe that the world respects and responds kindly to the sort of behavior found in the beatitudes if you know absolutely nothing about the world. Things don’t work like that. If you turn the other cheek you will probably end up with two sore cheeks. And the meek may inherit the earth; but between now and then, they won’t go very far in the real world of business, politics, or industry. That’s just the way it is, and that’s the way it always has been, and Jesus was no fool. He knew that. Jesus was not trying to shine any light on how the world works. Besides, it really doesn’t make any sense to crucify the Lord for giving sensible advice for getting ahead. Or even for giving silly advice about getting ahead.

If there is a point here about the world, it is really that, as far as the world is concerned, the beatitudes don’t make any sense at all. There is nothing rational about living the beatitudes with the hope that it will result in a more successful or prosperous life.

The beatitudes are no more about what works in the world than they are directions to us about how we should act. Instead, the beatitudes are about God, they are about who God is, and who God blesses, and what the kingdom of the heart of the Father.

The beatitudes teach us what matters to God, they teach us who is especially important to God, and they tell us what God pays attention to. They present a large and important part of Jesus’ distinctive vision of who God is.

Now, Jesus gives us this surprising information about God hoping, no doubt, that such knowledge may have some effect on us. But that is up to us. In the beatitudes, and the entire Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offers us His picture of God’s values and God’s priorities; and He offers them as an alternative to the vision of life we usually carry around with us. ||We can only act on what we can see; and Jesus is giving us the chance to see farther, and clearer, and deeper than ever before. The idea is that if we can see, really see, whom God blesses, then we well at least know the road to blessedness, and so be able to use that knowledge.

Again, the beatitudes are a glimpse into the heart and mind of God. They don’t tell us what our world is like. We already know that. In fact, we know that so well that we assume that anything of value will work real well in and with this world. Jesus is trying to shake us loose from that assumption, and give us a different vision of life, one that has at its foundations the very nature of God.

The reason Jesus holds up impractical things like turning the other cheek or giving to whomever asks is not because they work, but because that’s how God is, and that’s how God acts and that’s what God considers important and worth doing.

Now, what we do with this is up to us. Remember, we are not getting a bunch of moral laws here. We are being offered a new vision of our world and our lives. The point is not that we must obey a rule that says ‘thou shalt be meek and poor in spirit’. The point is that we can look at the mind of God, and at the world around us, and discover all sort of new possibilities. Who knows, we might decide that, if it’s good enough for God, it’s good enough for us.

So we have some new light on God. And a question. The question is: If God is really like this; if God has the preferences and the priorities of the beatitudes, then what could that mean? How could life be different, how you be different? That’s the issue, and that is the question Jesus leaves us with. It’s a good question, and worth working on.

We always hear the story of the Transfiguration on the Sunday before Lent begins. There is a sensible, traditional reason for that—which goes like this: The Transfiguration was, for the disciples, a burst of glory that came right before they began their long and difficult journey with Jesus to Jerusalem and the cross. The purpose of the Transfiguration, for the disciples, was to give them a brief glimpse of the victory that awaited Jesus after everything had been completed, after the struggle was over. They misunderstood that, and wanted to hold on to the event (to build booths, or dwellings), and skip the journey. But it doesn’t work that way.

I don’t know. God knows. That’s why God made you for Himself, and that’s why God is inviting you to take this year’s Lent walk with Him—to go off together for a while; perhaps to a high mountain apart.

Lent I, February 17, 2002

Seldom do we get such richness in Scripture—two of the most powerful and evocative stories in the Bible on the same day. And when it comes to stories about temptation, these readings just about cover the waterfront.