Pass the Peace, part 2

Sermon for Trinity Sunday, May 30, 2021
Isaiah 6:1-8; John 3:1-17

OK, let’s start with some congregational participation:  Raise your hand if you feel authorized and prepared to speak on behalf of God.

That’s sort of what I thought.  You may notice that I didn’t raise my hand, either. 

Today is a good day to be suspicious of our ability to speak for God.  In fact, it’s a good day to be suspicious of our ability to understand God, which might be a prerequisite for speaking on the deity’s behalf.  Today is Trinity Sunday, when we try to wrap our minds around the mystery of God being simultaneously both unity and diversity, Three in One and One in Three – Father, Son, and Spirit in constant relationship, eternally creating and redeeming and sustaining together.

We got some stirring glimpses of God’s mystery in our readings this morning.  The first one gave us more than a glimpse, actually.  Isaiah gets up one morning, planning to do whatever he did as a court official and perhaps a temple priest.  But instead, he encounters the Lord, up close and personal.  Yahweh’s presence is overwhelming, the hem of the deity’s robe filling the temple.  Seated on the throne, God is attended by seraphs.  We may hear that and think of angels, but artistic representations of seraphs show them as giant flying cobras.¹  No wonder Isaiah said, “Woe is me!  I am lost!” (6:5).  My language might have been a bit more colorful that that.  In Isaiah’s tradition, mortals who saw God face to face didn’t live to tell about it; so, Isaiah was sure that his profaneness, in the presence of God’s absolute holiness, was a chemical reaction he wouldn’t survive.  But one of the giant flying cobras takes a hot ember off the altar, touches it to Isaiah’s lips, and cleanses him of his impurity.  Then Isaiah hears the voice of the Almighty ringing in his ears:  “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  And Isaiah – despite how ill-prepared he is to speak for God – Isaiah says, “Here am I.  Send me.” (6:8)

You may have noticed that pronoun at the end of God’s one line in this reading: the word us: “Who will go for us?”  That’s a glimpse of divine mystery all by itself, potentially even more stunning than giant flying cobras.  Now, the people of Isaiah’s time would have heard this plural pronoun referring to the heavenly court – the royal attendants, and angels, and maybe even demigods over whom Yahweh ruled.  For us, we hear it differently, much like we hear that line in Genesis, in the first story of humanity’s creation, where God says, “Let us create humankind in our image, according to our likeness…” (1:26).  For Christians, it’s a glimpse of the reality we name as the Trinity, which to me is all about relationship.  God is relationship, and a model of “three in one, and one in three” tries to capture that – though maybe about as effectively as a two-dimensional character trying to describe the concept of “up.” 

Then, the Gospel reading fleshes out God’s mystery a bit more.  Jesus is talking with Nicodemus – a Pharisee, supposedly a religious expert.  Nicodemus comes to Jesus because he’s seen miraculous signs.  He knows that Jesus “has come from God; for no one can do these signs … apart from the presence of God,” he says (John 3:2).  On some level, Nicodemus understands that, when he looks at Jesus, he’s seeing divinity itself.  And I think that gives Jesus a chance to open up this deepest of mysteries.  He tells Nicodemus, “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (3:3) – in effect saying, You’re right.  And just as I have come to earth from the realm of God’s reign and rule, so those who see God’s reign and rule must be born from above, too.  If you see the signs of the kingdom, Nicodemus, then you’re more than halfway there already.  Just believe it and connect the dots, and eternal life is yours, now and forever.

In this present chapter of eternal life, we’re not going to be able to explain the nature of God.  The best we can do is describe and reflect on some divine attributes.  Here are some I feel pretty sure about.  First, love – in fact, scripture tells us, love isn’t just something God does; it’s what God is (1 John 4:16).  Here’s another: relationship.  The doctrine of the Trinity tells us that this is how God functions, partners who together form a living, dynamic entity that’s both greater than, and reliant on, each individual.  Here’s another: movement, both in terms of how God works and in terms of what God seeks from us.  Our God does not sit still, impervious to the joys and the suffering of creation.  Instead, our God is a deity who goes, who comes, who whispers and cajoles and reproves and inspires.  And who sends.

Fundamentally, God wants two things from us, I believe.  As Jesus tries to explain to Nicodemus, God wants relationship with us: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).  And that means not just existing forever but living in God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.  So, that’s number 1: God wants relationship with us.  And then, number 2: God wants relationship from us, asking us to care for our neighbors and for one another.  Our God is Love that sends us out to love.

We know that, right?  I’m convinced we know it because, over the past several months, I’ve heard it over and over again, from you – the people of this church family.

The story begins with a Vestry resolution, of all things – not typically the source of deep reflection on our relationships with God and one another.  Many of you have heard this before, but here’s the short version.  Last summer, a resolution came to Vestry that we should fly the LGBTQ pride flag from the church’s flagpole.  St. Andrew’s is not a place with a history of wearing social advocacy on its sleeve, so we created a process for gathering input to discern what to do when questions like this arise.  That involved creating an Advocacy Discernment Committee made up of progressive, conservative, and radical-middle parishioners, and that committee put together several opportunities for us to learn to talk about divisive issues.  We had a Lenten study of our presiding bishop’s book Love Is the Way, which drew on his personal history, as well as our nation’s history of the struggle between exclusion and embrace.  We offered a class on how to do civil discourse – how to share and listen in love when different perspectives are guaranteed.  Now, we’re offering a class called, “What’s the Role of Our Church In….”  I actually made a mistake with the name; the class is really, “What Should Be the Role of Our Church In…” because that’s what we’ve been talking about over the past four weeks.  And one of those topics was the inclusion of LGBTQ people in the Church and the question of flying a Pride flag.

As Jesus observed to Nicodemus, the Holy Spirit often moves in ways we can’t predict and maybe can’t even see directly, like watching the wind blowing through the trees.  In the April Vestry meeting, we were discussing the issues before us – not just the Pride-flag resolution but how we’re learning to have civil discourse on hard topics.  And I had a Holy Spirit moment.  I know this because I felt the urge to sketch something.  Now, my artistic abilities pretty much stop at stick figures; so, if I felt the urge to sketch, it wasn’t coming from me.  Listening to the Vestry members talking about just how hard it is these days to share our passions without cutting ourselves off from each other, I sketched a set of three banners.  Not banners to go inside the church but to go outside, banners to share with the neighbors we’re called to love.  Lauren Richardson, our communications manager, who has much more artistic ability than I do, took my ugly idea and turned it into something.  If you’re here in person this morning, you’ll find these images on the next-to-last page of the bulletin.  You’ll also find them hanging on the front and the back of HJ’s, and they’ll be there for the foreseeable future.

For those of you at home, here they are: “God loves all.  All means all.  Pass the peace.”

            This is us, right?  The God we worship is the God scripture names as Love.  That divine love knows no restrictions.  God doesn’t love everybody except … fill in the blank.  God just loves all – no exceptions.  Whoever feels excluded or embraced – whether people on the right or the left, whether LGBTQ or straight, whether white or people of color – all means all.

And then, God sends us out in love.  In our tradition, we practice this during worship every Sunday, training ourselves in the way God wants us to live the other 99 percent of the week.  We call it passing the peace.  We learn it here so that, when we go forth in the name of Christ at the end of the service, passing the peace just becomes what we do.

These banners came from discussions about social advocacy, but I’d say they’re about something else.  I’d call it divine advocacy.  I’d call it following the heart of the God who loves all, and welcomes all, and sends us out to do the same. 

So, some of you will be looking for the rest of the story.  That Vestry resolution from last summer was about putting something new on the church’s flagpole.  So, let’s close that loop.  The church’s rules, our canons, indicate that the rector has final say in matters of the buildings and grounds.  So, here’s what’s going up on the church’s flagpole.  You’re looking at them – the flag of our nation and the flag of our church.  And, I guess, we could put the flag of our state up there, too, if we want to thumb Missouri’s nose at the half of us whose hearts and taxes belong to the other side of the state line.  But that’s it in terms of what goes on our flagpole – nation, maybe state, and church.

Even though God is deeply mysterious, God’s call to us is not.  We worship a God who is love and who sends us out to love.  Let that be our fundamental understanding, our litmus test.  As our presiding bishop likes to say, if it’s not about love, it’s not about God.  That God looks to people even such as you and me and says, “Whom shall I send, and who shall go for us?”  And like the prophet Isaiah, despite our failings and our fears, we come back with, “Here am I; send me.” 

Well, consider this your deployment:  God loves all.  All means all.  So, pass the peace.

 
1.      The HarperCollins Study Bible.  New York: HarperCollins, 1993. 1022 (note).

Learn Something, Love Somebody, Have a Good Time

Sermon for May 9, 2021 (Mother's Day)
John 15:9-17

It may not shock you to know that, as a boy, I couldn’t wait to get out of the house and go play.  I can see myself one evening in particular, when I was about 9 years old, running to the sliding glass door leading to our backyard, about to make my break to meet up with friends in the twilight.  I was already later than I wanted to be because I’d had to do the dishes before dashing outside.  But as I reached the door, my mother called out and said, “Wait a minute.”  She always did this when I would leave.  Impatient, with my hand already on the door handle, I said, “What?”  And she said, “You know:  Learn something; love somebody; have a good time.”  I rolled my eyes and, finally, I was free.

You may have heard me share that line before.  It was my mother’s favorite line; she said it to my sisters and me all the time.  It drove me crazy, too, and I know my mother enjoyed that.  But she wasn’t just fiddling with me.  She was taking the opportunity to reinforce her prime directive, the mission statement she’d created for the four of us kids:  “Learn something; love somebody; have a good time.”

That line isn’t exactly what Jesus is saying to his friends here in today’s Gospel reading.  But I think my mother was onto something that Jesus was teaching, too. 

 Now, my parents were both educators, so “learn something” was always going to be part of their deepest desire for their children.  In their eyes, everything was a learning opportunity, and especially so for my mother.  Whether it was a big family trip, or a Saturday outing to the zoo, or an afternoon in the backyard watching ants walking in a line, every moment was a teaching moment. She just couldn’t help herself.    

I don’t necessarily hear Jesus saying “learn something” in today’s reading.  But the other two imperatives in my mother’s prime directive I think are pretty much right on point with Jesus’ message to his friends. 

Now, let’s hit “pause” just a minute.  Sometimes in Scripture, what Jesus is trying say gets a little hazy.  I think that’s especially true in John’s Gospel.  The book’s flow feels like it was written by a committee, and Jesus seems chronically unwilling to give a straight answer to any question, even from his friends.  So, sometimes you hear a reading from John, and it leaves you thinking, “Well, that was beautiful.  I wonder what it meant.” 

Not so much today.  Today, Jesus cuts to the chase.  He says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (15:12).  And how has he loved them?  By laying down his life for them, for his “friends” (15:13) – or, as the Greek says literally, by laying down his life for his “loved ones.”¹  By this point in the story, that’s who his disciples have become to him, and him to them – “loved ones.”  They share the same kind of relationship as Jesus and the Father share.  His followers are no longer servants, or students, or disciples, or whatever word we might feel more comfortable using for them and for us.  Instead – as they experienced earlier that night at the Last Supper, when Jesus took off his robe and stooped down and washed their feet – these men and women around him have become his friends, sharing with him nothing less than divine love.  You are my friends, Jesus tells them, and I lay down my life for you.

I don’t know how that sounds to you, but to me, that’s both the best and the least comfortable thing in the world to hear – that God befriends us.  One of the hallmarks of Christianity is this crazy claim that God stooped down to us and stoops down to us still, taking on humanity fully in the person of Jesus and continuing to take on our nature, dwelling with us and among us, as well as reigning supreme as the Lord of all creation.  I encounter Jesus in you, and you, and you.  Together, we comprise the Body of Christ in this place, filled by him in the Eucharist so we might be him with one another and for this broken world.  “The fullness of God was pleased to dwell” among us in Jesus (Colossians 1:19), and he’s still here, day by day.  “You did not choose me, but I chose you,” he says (John 15:16).  That’s tremendously empowering – and deeply humbling.  The sovereign of the universe knows your name and is calling you to walk along, side by side, promising to be there with you regardless how rough the path becomes.  That’s an offer we’d best not ignore. 

And neither should we ignore the call that comes from it.  “I appointed you to go and bear fruit,” Jesus says – “fruit that will last” (John 15:16).  I’ve washed your feet, Jesus says, so you’ll know how to wash the feet of others.  This is less rocket science and more Nike swoosh:  Love one another – just do it.

Well, it’s Mother’s Day.  So, if we’re looking for an example of the kind of love that washes feet, the kind of love that gives itself away, many of us have been blessed to find it in our relationships with mothers by biology or mothers by choice – women who’ve shown us what it looks like to lay down their lives for the people they love.

I was blessed to grow up with a mom like that.  Of course, on Mother’s Day, it’s tempting to turn your mother into someone who nearly walks on water.  That’s not my mother, and she’d be the first to say it; she’s much more real than that.  But still, she earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s, and taught English and speech, all the while also raising four kids.  But more significant than the endurance of her parenting was its quality.  She was there for us.  And with the same intention that she put into bandaging skinned knees and reading bedtime stories, she also trained us to wash feet – to deflate our egos, to put others first, and to live in the joy that comes from service.  One time, my sister and I nearly burned the house down; but even then, I didn’t get in as much trouble as when I sought the spotlight for myself. 

We see this love that stoops down from heaven in a million other normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill stories of sacrifice – love so deep, so broad, so high that it can only be divine.  I think of the mothers of kids at Banneker School, working more than one job and still getting their children to class, or on the Zoom call, every day.  I think of the mothers of kids at our partner school in Haiti, spending resources they barely have to send their kids to class in the dignity of perfectly washed uniforms.  I think of mothers here, in this crazy time, showing up for their kids through the emotional and educational roller coaster of COVID, coping with family stress that the parenting guides never imagined.  And I think of mothers in their later years who, like Jesus, can call their children “friends,” still showing up as sources of the holy Wisdom that Scripture names with feminine pronouns.  It turns out, at least in the books of Wisdom and Proverbs, that holy Wisdom is a “she.”²

God still speaks that wisdom and love to us, just as Jesus spoke it to his friends.  So, I want to leave you with a question, something to chew on this week:  When you’re blessed to hear the voice of God, what voice is it? 

Of course, there’s no right answer to that question.  But for me, when I hear God’s voice through the chaos or the fog of daily life, it’s basically my mother’s voice I’m hearing.  And the message is often some facet of her own trinity of hope for her kids: “Learn something; love somebody; have a good time.” 

Now, that last one may seem an odd instruction to hear from God – to “have a good time.”  But I think, deep down, my mother wished that her kids would “have a good time” in much the same way Jesus expresses his desire for us in today’s reading:  “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11).  God wants us to know joy – not just happiness, for we all know how fleeting that is, like candy that just leaves you hungry a few minutes later.  Instead, God’s deep desire for us is the joy that springs from loving people– the counterintuitive richness and satisfaction that comes only from washing other people’s feet, from laying down your life in love for others.  That’s what I heard my mother calling us to find, as she sent us out the back door on our life’s mission.

So, as you think about the voice of God that you hear, let me end with a prayer: that the voice we too often ascribe to God, the voice of an angry, dissatisfied taskmaster – the dismissive, scolding voice of our own worst judgments – that this voice might finally fall quiet; and that instead we might hear the still, small voice of God whispering, “You are my beloved.  Learn something, love somebody, and live in the joy that only love can bring.”  

1.      The New Interpreter’s Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha. Nashville, Abingdon, 2003. 1939 (note).
2.      See, for example, Proverbs 8:1–9:12, as well as the Wisdom of Solomon 7:22-8:1 in the Apocrypha.

Pass the Peace

Sermon for Easter morning, April 4, 2021
John 20:1-18

Welcome to Easter worship at St. Andrew’s!  You all look beautiful to me.  It’s wonderful to be together in this latest manifestation of being God’s people in this place.  Some of us are here in the nave – masked and distanced, but at least in the same room again – and some of us are at home.  But all of it “counts.”  All of you there at home on your couches:  You’re just as much at worship as the folks here.  My hunch is that this hybrid approach is just how church is going to be – which is great.  It is so good to begin this next chapter in the story of God’s resurrection people.

And yet … in this moment of celebration, so much still plagues us.  In our community and our nation, we’re not yet out of the woods with COVID-19.  In Minneapolis, the trial of Derek Chauvin is underway, and I fear violence will follow whichever way the verdict goes.  On the southern border, children are still being held in what NBC News described as “prison-like facilities.”¹  In the halls of government, and on social media, and around the dinner table, dysfunction still reigns as we struggle to talk with each other, not at each other – or we just don’t talk at all.  Given all this, how can we come together – we, who are now part of the minority of Americans who actually belong to a community of faith² – how can we come together and glibly proclaim the power of resurrected life?

Well, death seemed to prevail on Easter morning 2,000 years ago, too.  In the darkness, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb to do the dirty work, tending to the body of her friend, her teacher, her Lord.  As if that weren’t bad enough, once she gets to the tomb, she sees the body’s gone, probably stolen.  As far as she knows, that’s truly the end of the story.  Just as life feels so often for us, so it was for Mary that morning – insult added to injury, anxiety compounding grief.  Just when you think it can’t get worse, it gets worse.  Welcome to Mary’s Easter morning – and our last 12 months.

Then Mary looks into the tomb, and she sees two strangers staring back at her.  They’re not supposed to be in this scene, and they only make her anxiety rise, the way surreal details complicate a bad dream.  Then she turns from the tomb only to have another strange encounter – one more out-of-place character in this theater of the absurd.  She thinks it’s the gardener and that he must have taken the body away.  But this isn’t the gardener; it’s Jesus, the one she’s been looking for.  And he speaks a word of peace to cast out the anxiety of her moment.  He speaks to her heart, and he calls her by name.

And in that moment, as Mary is filled with the love of the living God, fear and anxiety melt away.  She doesn’t yet understand, but she gets something better: the peace that surpasses understanding.  Empowered by the peace Jesus brings her, Mary passes it on to the other disciples hiding out in fear.  And the darkness that began in weeping gives way to resurrection’s dawn.

Think about what Mary did with that gift of God’s peace.  Now, when we think of “peace,” our minds may go to a pretty passive place.  Maybe peace feels like a long walk in the woods.  Maybe peace feels like a bucket of beers at the beach.  Now, don’t get me wrong; I’d be happy with either one of those this afternoon.  But notice what the Gospel story doesn’t say.  When Jesus appeared to Mary, assuring her that he’d soon ascend to the Father and that all’s right with the world, Mary could have taken it easy.  She could have gone to Starbucks, gotten a latte, and sat on the corner watching the people go by.  She could have said to herself, “Great, Jesus is alive!  Now he’ll make everything go back to normal.”  Mary could have breathed a huge sigh of relief and checked out, now that the Son of God was back in business.

But Mary felt her heart stir.  She found her voice.  She’d seen the Lord, and she was filled with the power of peace.  So, instead of putting her feet up, Mary hit the road, heading out to find the other disciples and share with them the power of peace.  God’s peace doesn’t just give us blessed rest.  It awakens our hearts – and then our hands, and our feet, and our voices, too. 

God’s peace may seem like a rare commodity these days.  Often, the closest thing we get is suppressed conflict.  Anymore, it’s a good day when we manage to avoid an argument.  But that is not peace.  That is not resurrection.  That’s a just a pause in the culture wars raging around us.

God’s peace is not the absence of conflict.  Peace is the knowledge, the trust, the certainty that, in the end – no matter how ugly things may feel right now – in the end, life defeats death.  Hope defeats despair.  Possibility defeats stagnation.  “The light shines in the darkness,” as John’s Gospel says, “and the darkness did not overcome it” (1:5).

Now, for us, maybe we’ve never found ourselves in a moment when we thought we had the power to change the world.  But I would say Mary Magdalene shows us that the power of peace does just that:  It changes the world.

In our worship this morning, we’ll be doing something we haven’t done in months.  We will share the peace of the Lord, the peace of the King, the peace of resurrected life.  We’ll turn to each other and exchange that ancient greeting, “The peace of the Lord be always with you” – a countercultural proclamation of what resurrected life brings us.  Whether you’re here in the nave, or in the Jewell Room, or over at HJ’s, or on the couch at home, I want you to feel what Mary Magdalene felt – that the peace of the Lord is the power to change our world. 

And, you know, we’re not the only people who are passing along this holy power of resurrected life in a broken world.  Let me give you a little backstory.  A couple of weeks ago, I preached about God calling us to walk together even as we disagree with each other, and I mentioned a webinar I’d seen featuring former Sen. John Danforth.  In the webinar, the senator, who’s also an Episcopal priest, was calling the nation and our Church to strive for unity.  He was arguing that the Church has a particular role to play in modeling reconciliation – showing how we truly can be, out of many, one.  Well, as it turned out, our senior warden, Bill Aliber, and I had the chance to have a personal conversation with Sen. Danforth a few days later, and the senator had more to say about that call to reconciliation he was giving the Church.

He described an effort he’s putting together with our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and other faith leaders, a push to unify people of different political perspectives under the banner, “I choose kindness.”  We’ll be hearing more about choosing kindness in the months to come, I’m sure.  But Sen. Danforth said something else that I think can move us forward even today as we try to figure out how to follow in the powerful footsteps of Mary Magdalene. 

The senator said he sees the ministry of reconciliation as the particular spiritual gift that The Episcopal Church can offer our nation in this polarized time.  Here’s how Sen. Danforth put it:  “People in our Church understand what it means to exchange the peace.  Well, what if we identified ourselves that way?  What if we said, ‘We exchange the peace – that’s who we are’?  What if we said, ‘We exchange the peace – here and there,’ in the church and in the world?  This is our ministry: to exchange the peace with people we disagree with.  Yes, our country is fractured, but we are not powerless to change this.”

We are not powerless to change this.  In fact, our worship gives us the model – it shows us the power we can bring in service to the world.  Every Sunday, in person or online, we gather in the darkness of the toll life can take.  Every Sunday, we join with hundreds of others bearing those same burdens.  Every Sunday, we ache for our hearts, and our society, to be made whole.  Every Sunday, we hear the good news that this healing and wholeness is exactly what God wants, too – even what Jesus gave his life for.  Every Sunday, we gather with other people who believe very different things than we do, but we share this healing meal of Holy Communion, in which Jesus gives himself so we can live – truly live – now and forever.  And every Sunday, we get the opportunity to pass this peace of our Lord to anybody and everybody around us, regardless of their point of view. 

These days, that’s a countercultural witness.  That’s a lifegiving witness.  That’s what living in the kingdom of God looks like: The peace of the Lord be always with you, regardless of your favorite candidate.  The peace of the Lord be always with you, regardless of your immigration policy.  The peace of the Lord be always with you, for you are a beloved child, made in God’s image and likeness.  And Jesus Christ defeated sin and death for you. 

The peace of the Lord is not politely silent, for it stared down political and religious oppression.  The peace of the Lord does not avoid conflict, for it took on evil and won.  Instead, the peace of the Lord seeks the common ground of God’s holy ground.  The peace of the Lord seeks hard conversations.  The peace of the Lord asks questions – not to score points but to go deep, to find out, “What makes you believe that with such passion?”  The peace of the Lord brings healing, restoring all people to unity with God and each other in Christ (BCP 855).

So, when Deacon Bruce stands up at the end of our worship and tells you to “go in peace to love and serve the Lord,” I want you to take him seriously.  Jesus has defeated sin and death, and he’s given you the same power he gave to Mary Magdalene – the power to heal the world.  What if we believed we could actually do it?  Well, we can.  Just pass the peace. 

1.      NBC Nightly News, March 29, 2021.  Available at: https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news-netcast/video/nightly-news-full-broadcast-march-29th-109346885605.  Accessed April 1, 2021.

2.      Stunson, Mike.  “Majority of Americans don’t belong to a place of worship in historic decline, poll finds” [sic].  Kansas City Star.  March 29, 2021.  Available at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/national/article250289895.html.  Accessed April 1, 2021.

I Want to See Jesus

Sermon for Sunday, March 21, 2021
John 12:20-33; chapters 7 and 9 of Love Is the Way

You know, sometimes when we read Scripture, it’s just as important to note what isn’t said as to note what is said.  I think that’s true about our Gospel reading today in its very first sentence. 

Let me set the stage.  For us, today is the fifth Sunday of Lent, and we’re beginning to anticipate Jesus’ riding into Jerusalem a week from now on Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week.  But in today’s Gospel reading, it is Palm Sunday, just after Jesus has ridden into Jerusalem challenging the religious and political authorities.  In fact, in the verse before today’s reading, the Pharisees have looked around at the crowds and said, “You see, [we] can do nothing.  Look, the world has gone after him!” (John 12:19).

And as proof, the scene shifts to “some Greeks” who are also in Jerusalem for the Passover festival (John 12:20).  Now, when the New Testament talks about “Greeks,” it doesn’t just mean people from Greece.  It means outsiders – non-Jews, people who were part of the Hellenistic culture of the Roman Empire.  So, these outsiders come to one of the disciples, and they say, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (12:20).

Interestingly, the reading doesn’t say the Greeks wanted answers to deep theological questions.  Now, if we’d been there, we might have asked any number of questions – maybe, “How does eternal life work?” or “Who gets into heaven?” or “How good do I really have to be?”  But answers aren’t what these outsiders wanted.  Instead, they wanted simply “to see Jesus” – to talk with him, to experience him, to bask in God’s loving presence.

For the past several weeks, we’ve been reading our presiding bishop’s book, Love Is the Way.  In one of the chapters for today, Bishop Curry describes an experience he had with an outsider, an outsider of the worst kind – someone who was dealing drugs and dealing death in the church’s neighborhood in Baltimore. 

Bishop Curry and his congregation had done great work to reach the people around them – inviting neighborhood kids to breakfast and Sunday school, preaching on street corners, singing Christmas carols to folks in the alleys.  Well, one of the “bad guys” in the neighborhood had heard them singing in the streets, and he came to church wanting to talk to the priest. 

Michael Curry did not share the young man’s desire for a conversation.  In fact, he was angry with this young man, who represented all the problems afflicting the neighborhood.  But the young man came to church, and Curry started meeting with him.  Eventually, the young man said, “Tell me about Jesus.”  Curry’s anger turned to surprise and then to some shame for not having talked about Jesus before, instead trying to come up with community resources to help the young man deal with his problems.  (I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what I would have done, too.)  But the young man was after more than social services:  “Tell me about Jesus,” he said.  And several conversations later, Curry was baptizing this young man into a life-changing commitment to “renounce Satan,” to renounce “the evil powers of this world,” and instead “to follow and obey [Jesus] as [his] Lord” (BCP 302-303).¹

What would we do in a similar situation?  How would we respond if someone we considered an enemy wanted to sit down with us and find out about this Jesus we worship? 

As we try to wrap our heads around that one, let’s shift the question so it strikes even closer to home:  Bring to mind someone who’s on the opposite side from you on nearly every issue – someone who thinks the political leader you can’t stand is a witness for all that’s just and true.  Now, what would you do if this person, someone who’s “the other” in that way – what would you do if that person wanted to know how you see God, how you see Jesus? 

I think how we see Jesus underlies much of our disagreement about social issues and public policy as Christians.  On the one hand, some see Jesus witnessing against those who wield power through unjust and oppressive social structures.  On the other hand, some see Jesus reinforcing American exceptionalism, proclaiming rugged individualism as the good news of freedom for God’s children.  Could those people sit down together and talk about how they see Jesus?  Could they have a conversation about how they understand our society and our nation, and how their faith in Jesus Christ might shape that?

In his book, Presiding Bishop Curry describes a meeting of the primates of the Anglican Communion, the archbishops leading Anglican Christians around the world.  This meeting took place just after the American Episcopal Church had changed its rules about marriage.  The same month in 2015 that the Supreme Court decided all people have a right to marry the person they love, The Episcopal Church’s General Convention voted to take gender-specific language out of our rules and allow marriages of same-sex couples.  Soon after that, Bishop Curry went to his first meeting with the other leaders of the Anglican Communion, where he had to defend this change to his colleagues, most of whom disagreed with him vehemently.

It’s a great story, as the presiding bishop tells it.  But to cut to the chase, here’s what the Anglican leaders did:  They chose to hang in there with each other.  They spent time getting to know each other and built relationships.  Eventually, they compromised on some sanctions the American Church would have to endure.  And finally, most important, they decided to keep “walking together” as followers of Jesus.  They didn’t deny the distance that separated them as they kept to opposite sides of a common path, but they chose to keep walking together in the same direction.²  For people who like clear rulings and decisive action, this might seem pretty lame.  But I think it was brilliant – and, by the way, holy.

I believe “walking together” is a great metaphor for what we need to do in our parish, in our Episcopal Church, and in our nation – bravely choosing to be on the same path despite the distance between us, choosing to value each other even when we don’t understand each other.  You know, as it turned out, the Greeks who came to see Jesus didn’t end up understanding him just the same way as his Jewish followers did.  Christianity morphed as it spread through the Empire, as Greek philosophy and Roman culture bled into the witness of Palestinian Jews … and that was OK.  It created a movement that was stronger because of its breadth but that still held Christ as its core.  For us now, regardless of how we each see Jesus, we share the core of his Great Commandment:  Because God is love, we are called to love – to love God, and neighbor, and one another.  Everything else is theological reflection on that truth.

Here’s something else we have in common, regardless of the differences that put distance between us.  Not a one of us walked the dusty roads of Palestine 2,000 years ago.  We’re all Greeks.  We’re all outsiders.  We’re all still asking to see Jesus so we, too, can glimpse the heart of God.

That truth came out in a webinar I saw last week about “people of faith building bridges from polarization to reconciliation.”  It featured someone I admire very much – former Missouri Sen. John Danforth.  As many of you know, Jack Danforth served in the U.S. Senate for 18 years and, after his retirement, was ambassador to the United Nations and a special envoy to Sudan.  Jack Danforth is also an Episcopal priest, and his faith and discipleship have undergirded all his service.  The webinar was a conversation between the senator and Fr. Matt Malone, a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, writer, and editor of America magazine.  I want to share with you a snippet of Sen. Danforth’s comments – a brief theological reflection on the truth that unites us:

One thing we have to say is … truth, from the standpoint of Christianity, … is not an ideology; it’s certainly not a political ideology.  Truth is a person, and the person is Christ, whom we meet in love and through whom we meet others in love.  A second point is to understand that our political opponent, somebody who totally disagrees with us, is made in the image of God.  This is a child of God we’re talking about; it’s not a thing.  It’s not a political position.  This is a human being created in the image of God.³

And walking alongside that human being created in the image of God, we step closer and closer toward seeing the truth that is Jesus Christ. 

Similarly, in his book, Bishop Curry recalls working with the Archbishop of Canterbury as they prepared for the Royal Wedding.  A reporter asked them how they could work together when they didn’t see eye to eye on marriage equality for LGBTQ people.  So Bishop Curry pointed to the archbishop and said, “This is my brother, [and] we follow Jesus.  [Jesus] teaches us the way of love; he didn’t teach us the way of agreement.  That love dominates our relationship, not our agreements or disagreements.”⁴ 

So, if you’re still looking for a little spiritual practice here at the end of this Lenten season, here’s a challenge to try out.  In our common walk to see Jesus, when you encounter a potential enemy, acknowledge the distance between you on the path.  But instead of politely easing away from this person you might see as “the other,” take a step or two closer.  Choose conversation over polite silence.  Listen for the passion that brings this child of God to walk the same road you’re walking.  Don’t agree to disagree.  Instead, agree to love in disagreement.  And when you do, you’ll see Jesus just that much more clearly.

1.      Curry, Michael.  Love Is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times.  New York: Avery, 2020.  155-159.

2.      Curry, 194-204.

3.      John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics.  “Interpersonal Relations Across Political Divides: People of Faith Building Bridges from Polarization to Reconciliation. John C. Danforth and Matt Malone in Conversation.”  Available at: https://rap.wustl.edu/events/interpersonal-relations-across-political-divides/.  Specific clip is 35:43 to 36:42, beginning at https://youtu.be/On--7MF8lfc?t=2142.  Accessed March 19, 2021. 

4.      Curry, 205.

 

The Gospel of the Long Game

Sermon for Feb. 28, 2021
Genesis 17:1-7,15-16; Mark 8:31-38

Welcome to week 2 of our sermon series on the book Love is the Way, by our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry.  Today, we’re considering chapters 4 through 6, where his reflection on the power of love gets a little more personal for us.  Bishop Curry moves from asking “can love really change the world?” to asking “I’m just a regular person – can my love have an impact?” 

Well, you know, if we ask ourselves, “What can I do to change the world,” most of us will stop dead in our tracks.  But if we ask ourselves, “Who can I be for the people around me?” – well, maybe we can live into an answer to that one.  I think Bishop Curry would say we are nothing less than God’s conduits, delivering the power of Love that gives itself away.

Going down that road, we’re following in the footsteps of some unlikely world-changers.  In our first reading today, we eavesdrop on Abram and God, who’ve already talked twice before this story.  Earlier, God promised children to Abram, and a woman he held in slavery had borne their son, Ishmael.  Well, that was one way to make good on the promise of descendants, but it wasn’t the answer Abram was looking for.  Now, God formalizes that promise by making a covenant with Abram and his wife, Sarai.  God says, “You shall be” not just the ancestor of a nation, Abram; “you shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations” (Genesis 17:4).  And to mark this pivot point in history, God gives them new names – Abram, the “exalted ancestor,” becomes Abraham, the “ancestor of a multitude.”¹  And Sarai becomes Sarah, meaning “princess.”²  The new names mark a turn in the lives of these characters:  They won’t just change the future for their nation; they’ll change the future for peoples yet to come.

Then, of course, we hear from Jesus in the Gospel reading, the Son of God taking a path that even his chief lieutenant thinks is crazy.  After a section of Mark’s Gospel where Jesus has been healing people, and walking on water, and confronting the religious leaders, and feeding thousands, Jesus now drops the news his followers least expected:  His path to bringing in the reign and rule of God goes through Calvary.  There’s a cross awaiting him … and not just him.  “If any want to become my followers,” Jesus says, “let them deny themselves, and take up their cross, and follow me” (8:34).  And Peter says, wait a minute, Jesus.  We thought we were heading to glory.  We thought we were changing the world.  Now you’re telling us that we’re giving up everything, giving up our lives, in the hope that things will get better later?

Abraham and Jesus are both playing the long game.  They’re both practitioners of the spirituality of tomorrow.  They’re both seed planters, as Bishop Curry says.  Abraham is never going to see the nations that will rise as his descendants.  Jesus is willing to be the seed himself, the grain of wheat that dies in order to bear the fruit of eternal life (John 12:24).  His followers, like Peter and Andrew, then take the promise of the kingdom on the road, to the Roman world and beyond, dying themselves without seeing the end of the story they’re preaching. 

Well, let me tell you about some other practitioners of the spirituality of tomorrow – other folks who play the long game of God’s kingdom.

As you know, we’ve begun a Lenten class in civil discourse.  Our leader, Ann Rainey, asked the 25 people on the Zoom call to say briefly why they were there.  Many of the responses reflected frustration with conversations, social media, and culture now, as well as class members’ grief that they just can’t stay in relationship with friends or family who say objectionable things.  But along with this frustration and grief, I heard shared faith that the act of offering themselves for this experience might be
the start of a change.  As any educator knows, learning, by definition, is change; and applying what we learn can change the world around us.  In Bishop Curry’s book, he quotes a Jewish proverb that says, “Before every person, there marches an angel proclaiming, ‘Behold, the image of God’” (95-96).  Archbishop Desmond Tutu has asked what we would do if we took seriously that notion that every person is made in God’s image and likeness.  What would we do?  We would bow to every person we meet³ – even those whose points of view we can’t abide.  In trying to build that skill, I think the folks in the civil-discourse class are playing the long game, practicing the spirituality of tomorrow.

Here's another example, a community leader profiled in last Sunday’s Kansas City Star: Alvin Brooks.  If you’ve been around Kansas City any length of time, you know that name.  Alvin Brooks grew up in here in the 1930s and ’40s in a world of strict segregation – something he learned directly as a boy when he and some white friends walked into a drug store on the border between a black and white neighborhood and ordered themselves cherry Cokes.  The White druggist made him take his Coke in a paper cup out on the sidewalk.⁴  Since then, Brooks has made it his life’s work to bring people together to confront and upend injustice. 

           He did that as one of a handful of Black police officers here in the 1960s.  Once, he was hanged in effigy, called the N-word, and told to go home.  Fellow police officers cut down the effigy, took it back to the station, and set it at a desk, thinking that was funny.  Brooks’ father asked him why he would want to be a police officer here, saying, “You know how they treat us.”  But, Brooks said, his thought was that he would show them how to “be a better cop.”  From there, Brooks served with the school district, served as the city’s director of human relations and assistant city manager, served on the Board of Police Commissioners, served on the City Council, and became mayor pro tem.  And maybe most significantly, he founded the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, which for decades has provided crisis intervention and crime prevention, supporting families affected by violence.⁵  

In all this, he’s pushed against seemingly immovable forces, but he’s done it Jesus-style.  Here’s how one of our city’s greatest religious leaders, the Rev. Wallace Hartsfield, described Brooks:  He said, “Alvin deliberately takes up the pain of others.  He doesn’t have to do that.  He has his own pain.  But he has surrendered his life for others, and that is the secret to his strength.”⁵  Alvin Brooks has spent decades changing the world one life at a time.

        Here’s another example, a Kansas City leader from a younger generation: Natasha Kirsch.  You know her work if, like me, you take your dog to The Grooming Project.  Natasha created The Grooming Project and the organization behind it, Empower the Parent to Empower the Child, or EPEC.  Most of you have heard about EPEC and its training program, where single moms can learn a profession that actually pays a living wage.  It’s worked so well that its dog-grooming facility is now expanding, and EPEC is building apartments for students who need housing as they go through the program.

Natasha’s gift – one of her gifts, at least – is that she figured out how to use the world as she found it to change women’s lives.  Yes, many people in our culture probably care more about their dogs than they care about hungry people on the street, or about moms who don’t earn a living wage.  That’s not good, and we need to keep moving away from our “our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice…,” as we prayed on Ash Wednesday (BCP 268).  And, at the same time, Natasha looked at the fact that I’m willing to pay $40 to get Petey groomed, and she figured out how to use that to train a mom for a job that will pay her a living wage.  Natasha is changing the world, one life at a time.

Here's a final example of someone playing the long game and practicing the spirituality of tomorrow.  I know a businessman here at St. Andrew’s who, politically, has a pretty conservative bent; he finds that this approach to public policy works best for his small business.  He also invests himself in the people who work for him.  In fact, he intentionally hires people of color and people with sketchy histories.  And then, he takes the time to get to know them –  learning their stories, learning their gifts, guiding them when he can.  I don’t know whether he’d frame it like this, but I’d say that by taking his employees so seriously, he’s seeing in each worker the image and likeness of God.  As a result, their lives improve – and, by the way, his business benefits because his workers know he’s invested in them.  That’s changing the world, one life at a time.

So, what do these examples have in common?  They flesh out our story.  As Bishop Curry says, “To pray and to work for the way things could be ….  That’s the hard way of love.” (79)  Their story also can be your story, a narrative any of us can step into.  In fact, it’s a narrative we’re each called to step into, in our own ways. 

You can change the world because you have the two fundamental capacities required for it.  First, you are made in the image and likeness of God, filled with power to accomplish God’s purposes.  And second, you can make the choice to recognize that divinity in everyone else around you.  You can invest yourself in real, live human beings who also bear God’s image and likeness.  For a few of us, that happens by leading a movement or starting a nonprofit.  But it also happens by putting yourself out there to serve someone who needs justice or who needs a second chance.  And, I’d say, it happens through your engagement in our democracy – when the way you vote seeks solutions, progressive or conservative solutions, that share this priority: putting first the well-being of the folks who get the short end of the stick.  That’s the test.

I guarantee you that you can change the world by being the person you are, living into the identity, the new name, God gave you in baptism.  If you’ve come through those baptismal waters, you share in the Spirit of the incarnate God who changed the world by giving his life for the people around him, even the ones who didn’t deserve it … which is all of us.  You have the capacity to “[set] your mind on divine things [not] on human things” (Mark 8:33), practicing the love that gives itself away by changing one life at a time.  

It’s the Gospel of the long game.  You may not see the harvest, but you’re called to plant the seeds.  And, as Bishop Curry says, even though the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second-best time is now (120). 

1.       The HarperCollins Study Bible.  Text note on Genesis 17:5.  New York: Harper Collins, 1993. 26.

2.       Speiser, E.A. Genesis.  In The Anchor Bible, volume 1.  Text note on Genesis 17:15.  New York: Doubleday, 1964. 123.

3.       Tutu, Desmond.  In God's Hands: The Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book 2015.  New York: Bloomsbury, 2014.  22.

4.       Schirmer, Sherry Lamb.  A City Divided: The Racial Landscape of Kansas City, 1900-1960. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2002.  179.

5.       Williams, Mara Rose.  “Alvin Brooks and Kansas City: A love story imperiled by racism, saved by service.”  The Kansas City Star, Feb. 21, 2021.  Available at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article249015770.html. Accessed Feb. 26, 2021.

 

Look Satan in the Eye

Sermon for Feb. 21, 2021
Mark 1:9-15

We’re beginning a preaching series today on the book Love is the Way by the presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church, Michael Curry.¹  And in this season of Lent, when many of us are giving up something we enjoy that’s really tasty, it seems almost unkind that Michael Curry spends much of Chapter 3 of his book describing his grandmother’s cooking. 

            Now, what do I know about soul food?  From direct experience? – not much, other than to say that soul food is what you find down at Niece’s, just south of Meyer and Troost, which also has maybe the best breakfast in Kansas City.  Of course, as Bishop Curry describes, this wonderfully rich and satisfying food originated from the scraps that kept the slaves alive, trash more fit for hogs than humans.  After emancipation and the abolition of slavery, these scraps were the food most Black people could afford, given that what they had was “nothing but freedom,” as historian Eric Foner describes it.²  But, as Bishop Curry says, his ancestors made those scraps into something new and wonderful, seasoning them richly and cooking them with an artist’s touch.  “My ancestors took a little and made a lot,” Curry writes.  “They took what was left over and made sure no one was left out. … That’s a miracle.  That’s taking what is old and making something new.” (55)    

Curry describes soul food to help us see what he means by “making do,” which is how he answers what I think is the most compelling question in these first three chapters of his book.  Here it is:  “How do I find the energy to keep loving when the world seems to be going the other way?” (50).  Well, we find the capacity for that by “making do” – living in what Curry calls the “miraculous mixture of hardship and hope” (50); “making garbage gourmet.” (56) 

            The Black experience in America, and here in Kansas City, is certainly a study in that.  But we also heard about a “making do” experience in today’s Gospel reading.  This is one of those readings that we hear and then, piously and politely, we try to ignore the elephant in the living room.  Well, here’s the elephant:  When Jesus is baptized, a voice comes from heaven pronouncing, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).  But then, one breath later, we hear this:  “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.  He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan.” (1:12-13)  Really?  This is what you get when you’re God’s Son, the “beloved”?  That’s what God’s love looks like – being driven into the wilderness?

Well, Bishop Curry’s book might help us with this.  When he says his ancestors were “making do,” that doesn’t mean what it might mean for most of us – getting by, in a holding pattern, making it through a rough patch.  For Bishop Curry’s ancestors, and for many people of color today, “making do” means “figuring out how to both survive and thrive” in circumstances that history has put upon you (55).  It’s figuring out how to make soul food from the master’s scraps.  It’s figuring out how to live in the wilderness.

In today’s Gospel reading, I think that’s what Jesus is doing out there in the wilderness – “making do.”  Does he want to go spend 40 days in a wasteland, being tempted by Satan.  I imagine not.  In fact, the situation is imposed on him.  In our English text, the verb is “drove” – “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness” (1:12).  In Greek, the sense is the same – the verb is ekballei, and in this usage it means, “to lead one … somewhere with a force which he cannot resist.”³  I get the sense Jesus was not going quietly … much like Bishop Curry’s ancestors.  So, there he is, out in the wilderness, being tested by Satan.  And he has to make do.

In Mark’s Gospel, so short on details, we don’t learn what that looks like.  So, I’m now going to commit one of the cardinal sins of preaching and look to one of the other Gospels – Matthew, in this case (4:1-11).  Matthew tells quite a story of Jesus and Satan out in the wilderness.  There, we learn Jesus has been going without food, which may not be too surprising, given the landscape.  And once he’s seriously hungry, that’s when Satan shows up for the test.  

Satan says, if you’re God’s Son, filled with power, turn the stones into bread, and eat up.  Jesus’ response is important – what he says, but also where it comes from.  Quoting the Law of Moses, he says, “One does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Deut 8:3).

Then, in an instant, Satan transports Jesus to Jerusalem, setting him on the pinnacle of the Temple and trying to get his goat.  Satan says, if you’re God’s beloved Son, throw yourself off this place, because after all, this Father who supposedly loves you “will command his angels concerning you,” and “on their hands they will bear you up so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”  Now it’s Satan getting in on the act and quoting Scripture, this time Psalm 91 (91:11-12).  But Jesus shows what Scripture’s for – not for proof-texting but for guiding your life – and he says, quoting Moses, “Again, it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’” (Deut 6:16). 

Then Satan goes for the spiritual jugular and offers Jesus the easy way to royal power and dominion.  He transports Jesus high above the kingdoms of the world and says, Look, “all these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me” (Matt 4:9).  But again, Jesus stands on God’s Word instead, the Word that empowers him even though it’s also God who drove him into the wilderness in the first place.  So, Jesus goes to the Law of Moses once again, snarling, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve only him’” (Deut 6:13).  And Satan disappears, defeated.

Wait.  Defeated? 

That’s right.  The war isn’t over yet – in fact, it’s just begun – but Jesus has won this battle.  Let’s see … in Scripture, when has Satan been defeated before?  Well, really, he hasn’t.  Job stood up to the test, but he didn’t send Satan packing.

In this time in the wilderness, Jesus has proven something I’m not sure we knew before: Satan can be conquered.  The power of evil, overwhelming as it is, does not get the last word.  And “making do” has proven it – proven the power of Love over the power of evil.

How does that happen?  And more to the point, how do we tap into it?  Well, in his book, Bishop Curry talks about a process for it, a “recipe” or a “methodology,” whereby the power of Love takes “an old reality and [creates] a new possibility.”  It’s about overcoming evil with good, as St. Paul wrote (Romans 12:21).  It’s like soul food: “Making garbage gourmet.” (56) 

Here’s how that recipe goes.  First, lean on tradition – not in the sense of “the way it’s always been” but in the sense of the stories and wisdom and direction that have guided God’s people for millennia.  That’s what Jesus is doing out there in the wilderness.  Driven out on his own, away from his community, seemingly away from the Father who loves him, Jesus remembers – and the Word of God flows from his heart.  So, first, learn and remember the tradition that sustains us.

Then, second: Practice imagination.  Jesus was a Jew in first-century Palestine, living under the thumb of the Romans.  Now, defying Rome was something his people did all the time, in quietly subversive ways, as people everywhere do in the face of oppressive power.  But defeating that power was something else.  There wasn’t a lot of precedent for that in the experience of Jesus’ contemporaries.  Revolts didn’t go so well.  But Jesus imagined a different future.  He called into being a future that others literally couldn’t imagine – a world where Love overcomes oppression, where good defeats evil, where swords are beaten into ploughshares, where peace rules.  Scripture has a name for what he was imagining – “the kingdom of God” (Mark 1:15), the reign and rule of God.  It’s what we ask for every time we offer the Lord’s Prayer – “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  We can name it, but Jesus could see it and imagine it into being.  So, Bishop Curry would say, the second step in the recipe of “turning the problem of reality into possibility” is to imagine it (56).

And the third step in the recipe is this: Add God to the equation.  This was the core of Jesus’ answer to his test out there in the wilderness.  Satan was offering him lots of things.  He invited Jesus to draw on his individual power.  He asked Jesus to lean on the assumption that, if we back ourselves into a corner, God will bail us out.  He offered Jesus the power of the world as tycoons and kings live it.  But Jesus changed the outcome by adding God to Satan’s equation.  As Bishop Curry says, when you change the variables of an equation, the outcome must change, too; and when you factor God into the equation, the outcome must change for good.

Well, here we are, beginning the season of Lent once again, walking with Jesus out into the wilderness.  So, let me ask you the other elephant-in-the-living-room question today:  What do you fear you can’t change?  What do you fear you can’t overcome?  What do you fear might be so powerful that you can’t conquer it? 

This Lent, take a cue from Jesus in the wilderness, and look Satan in the eye.  Remember the tradition that upholds you.  Imagine a liberated reality.  And add God to the equation.  Then, get ready.  Because when you do that, in the ancient words of the Great Litany, you will “finally beat down Satan under [y]our feet” (BCP 152).

1.  Curry, Michael.  Love Is the Way.  New York: Avery, 2020.
2.  Foner, Eric.  Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983.
3.  Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, electronic database, 2011, quoted at Bible Hub.  “1544. ekballo.”  Available at: https://biblehub.com/greek/1544.htm#.  Accessed Feb. 18, 2021.