Category: Sermons

The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday

Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the Day

Almighty and ever living God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

IN the Name of the God of Creation, who loves us all…Amen. Grace to you and peace, and greetings on this Palm Sunday. If you are visiting us on this lovely Palm Sunday morning, I bid you welcome. We are glad you are here. As my time among you comes to a close, I am so very grateful for this season among you all. It has been a rich and lovely year, and I will miss you all when I take my leave. As I ran on the trails yesterday, I recalled so many moments for which I am grateful, from a wedding in Espanol, to so many wonderful healing services, and all the richness of our liturgical year, now come full circle. There are many reasons for us to celebrate and give thanks for the past year. And as the poet Szymborska has said of what it means to have a soul, what it means, that is, to be human: Joy and sorrow aren’t two different feelings for it. It attends us only when the two are joined.  And this is the essence of Palm Sunday too isn’t it…the journey from a parade to sorrow. There have also been several funerals this past year, including the service for Palmer Temple, my dear friend, mentor, and colleague. And in our tradition, these services are outward and visible signs of Resurrection. We are, after all, Easter people. There is rejoicing, and yet it is so very hard when we lose someone dear to us. And, as I told my students for many years, much pastoral care takes place in Holy Saturday time and space, where we hold in tension the losses and transitions of the infinite Good Friday experiences of our lives and the hope and promise of Easter. And Palm Sunday and the journey to Jerusalem prepare us for the narrative of the Triduum. We must be prepared to sit in the uncertainty and ambiguity of Holy Saturday, to be there, to be present to all that is calls forth in us. And we cannot do this by skipping from Palm Sunday to Easter. The journey to Easter begins here, and now. What we need is here. And we have Mary Magdalene as one among our guides. All four gospels bear witness to Mary Magdalene as the premier witness to the resurrection – alone or in a group, but in all cases named by name. . . All four gospels insist that when the other disciples are fleeing, Mary Magdalene stands firm. As Cynthia Bourgeault as said, “she does not run, she does not betray or lie about her commitment, she witnesses.” But why, one wonders, do the Holy Week liturgies tell and re-tell Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus, while the steady, unwavering witness of Magdalene is not even noticed? How would our understanding of the Paschal Mystery change if the role of Magdalene was acknowledged? What if, instead of emphasizing that Jesus died alone and rejected, we reinforced that one stood by him and did not leave? For surely, this other story is as deeply and truly there in the scripture as is the first. How would this change the emotional timbre of the day? How would it affect our feelings about ourselves? About the place of women in the church? About the nature of redemptive love?”

Some have used the term “glittering sadness” to describe Palm Sunday. There is such unbearable beauty, and such pain, today. Jesus is hailed as king, and winds up as a slave; he will empty himself, accepting torture and execution at the hands of humans with total forgiveness. He will love us to the end. As the hymn says: See, from his head, his hands, his feet; sorrow and love flow mingled down…Sitting with my student and his family at Columbia Presbyterian last week, I understood in a new way how sorrow and love flow mingled down.  Palm Sunday reveals the passion, the sorrow and the love intermingled at the heart of all our lives. It forces us to choose how we will arrive at the cross: bearing that pain together, or using it to separate ourselves from others. Richard Rohr has suggested that the road to Jerusalem leads to a “bright sadness.”There is darkness, he says, but as we go through Holy Week there is now a changed capacity to hold it with less anxiety. It is what John of the Cross called “luminous darkness,” and it explains the simultaneous coexistence of deep suffering and intense joy that we see in the saints, which is hard for most of us to imagine. Palm Sunday helps us learn that after we take this journey, now we are just here, and here is enough. Such “hereness,” however, has its own heft, authority, and influence. As a result of this journey, one’s growing sense of infinity and spaciousness is no longer found just “out there” but most especially “in here,” in our heart, because Christ has become a part of who we are, too. The inner and the outer become one. As St. Augustine put it in his Confessions: You were within, but I was without. You were with me, but I was not with you. So you called, you shouted, you broke through my deafness, you flared, blazed, and banished my blindness, you lavished your fragrance, and I gasped.

The great poet W.H. Auden was asked once why he was a Christian, since all religions share similar ethical values. And Auden said, “Because nothing in the figure of Buddha or Confucius fills me with the overwhelming desire to scream, “’crucify him’.”  The desire to crucify is the way of the crowd. A crowd has the power to make people feel less alone in the face of death. This is why crowds are always at the heart of the violence done by religions and rulers. It is the shadow side of each of us.

Sigmund Freud knew how very seductive the mentality of the group, or the crowd can be: it makes and shapes our worldly identities, often through violence, casting-out and separation—relegating people to the status of the “other.” It lets us say, as Jesus’ own disciples will soon say: “That man? I don’t know him; he’s not one of us.” The crowd helps frightened, isolated individuals identify with the power of Caesar, the power of the temple, the nation, the tribe….the power, as my colleague Walter Brueggemann has said, of empire. The crowd allows prideful humans even to attempt to take the place of God: deciding who to judge, who to punish, who to scapegoat, who to cast out, who to punish out of a need for retribution. And so often we go to the cross, isolated in our pain. But we do not have to walk to the cross alone, we do not have to suffer alone, and this is what Palm Sunday is about. Look, Jesus says: this is how you do it. And so, in this glittering, bright sadness, we take up our cross, and follow him. I invite us all into a journey rich in story, ours, and His. Holy Week is a week of stories. It is a week during which we walk – liturgically, spiritually, communally, personally – on the road to Jerusalem, and on through the last days of Jesus. From the triumphal palm-laid path into Jerusalem we observe today, to the moon-lit agony of Gethsemane, to the sharp betrayal of friends, to the poignant washing of feet, to the arrest and execution of a beloved teacher and leader, this story needs no embellishment. It is an invitation to us. And so I invite you to do as Mary Oliver suggests, to pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it. And as Wendell Berry says, “We pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye, clear. What we need is here.” Amen.

Fifth Sunday in Lent – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the Day – Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

The Gospel: John 12:1-8  Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

In the Name of the God of Creation, who loves us all…Amen. Good morning and welcome to Holy Family on this Fifth Sunday in Lent as we near the end of our 40-day sojourn toward Easter. Thank you for being here today, and if you’re visiting us, welcome!

One day in early summer, many years ago, I was home from college and visiting my grandparents at their small farm in North Georgia. Their small house was perched on a hill beneath a lovely grove of ancient oak trees, with an open field off the front porch, and gardens to either side. My grandfather hung a hammock between two of the oak trees, and it was among my favorite places. On this day I recall dozing in the hammock after lunch, afloat on a sea of summer breezes and dappled oak leaf shadows, and smells from the garden, sung to sleep by the birds that my grandparents faithfully fed. As I awoke, the first image I saw was my grandmother’s handmade quilts, 5 or 6 of them, hanging on the clothesline nearby, airing out in the dear, sweet summer freshness of the country air. Although I had grown up with her lovingly crafted quilts, had slept beneath them on long winter nights, it was as if in that instant I saw them for the first time. Created from scraps of old ties, shirts, patches on patches on pants, and even the occasional vivid scrap of discarded dishcloth, they were ablaze with color and design, and appeared on fire in the summer morning sun, reflecting back a light that seemed to generate from each individual design, each carefully chosen, yet lovingly random addition to the whole cloth. These works of art, and I now realize that is what they are, were created of the ordinary bits and pieces of their lives—everyday scraps of common experience—and woven into a delightful, Incarnational narrative, a tapestry of care, and love.

Like the Gospel text for today, those quilts, even now as I hold them in my mind’s eye, remind me of the abundance of God’s love, into which we live during this season of Lent. Before that summer day I had never noticed—never really seen—those quilts for what they were, the carefully, compassionately crafted and redeemed tapestries of my grandmother’s love of life, and her love for us, a reflection of her ability to create outward and visible signs of her imaginative gifts and graces to warm us, and delight us. So it is with Mary in today’s Gospel. Every time she appears in each of the gospels, her compassion opens Jesus’ heart, and the texts are informed by her gracious abundance. I am the father of two sons of whom I am so very proud, and now four grandchildren, two of whom are girls. I am so grateful for the men who have mentored, guided, and shaped me; teachers and professors, football and track coaches, priests and colleagues who served as guides on the journey. But I have also been profoundly formed by the lavish, abundant love of maternal compassion, the cardinal virtue of pastoral care, by women like my grandmother who have loved and cared for me. Compassion, the Latin root of which means “womb-ish” or “womb-like,” is a powerful image in today’s Gospel text. And I believe that God’s abundant love is like the nurture and care of the womb, where we are sustained and nourished, and from which loving embrace we are given life. So, Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, with whom she shares a home, embodies that generous, extravagant compassion in this story. We know that on at least two occasions, Jesus comes here for dinner, including today’s story. The Last supper will ultimately be held here, too. And Jesus appears on Easter to the disciples in Mary’s home. There is no other place in which Jesus appears as often as he does in this sacred space.     

But even more remarkable is the complexity of the relationship he shares with Mary, how he so clearly cares for her, and in relation to whose actions he finds meaning and solace. She sits at his feet among the men to be near him, and to learn from him. Her sister Martha complains Mary is neglecting the work of serving food and drink to their guests. Jesus defends her, saying she has chosen the good portion and it will not be taken away from her. Nor, it seems, will she be taken away from him. When her brother Lazarus is desperately ill, Jesus, hears the news from his disciples, and takes the time to journey to their home. Lazarus dies before he arrives. Martha goes to him in the road with words of regret, even reproach, but also, resignation. Mary, though, runs to him and falls at his feet, bathed in tears, her sobs breaking his heart. And he, too, weeps – his tears brought forth by her compassion. His heart wells up in response to Mary, and for her, he rushes to Lazarus’ grave, calling him with such spiritual power to “Come Out,” that Lazarus does just that. Now we read the tale of Jesus’ arrival at their home six days before Passover. He will be their guest for a week. They throw a feast in his honor. Lazarus is there, resurrected just days earlier. Mary brings out a jar of costly perfume, made with pure nard, we are told, and anoints his head, his hair, and then, using her own hair, his feet. All in the room are joined in an embrace of fragrance. And, we hear that Judas is angry and, as he says, the extravagance of the gesture bothers him. He declares the perfume could have been sold for a large sum and used to feed the poor.

Jesus protects and defends her. “Leave her alone!,” Jesus says to Judas; “You will always have the poor, but you will not always have me.”

There is no one else in the gospels for whom Jesus feels so tender, is so responsive, speaks so protectively, and with whom he chooses to be a frequent guest. We know the most astonishing of his miracles, the raising of Lazarus, for which miracle John says the authorities chose to kill him, was done for love of her. And according to Luke, Jesus declared she would be remembered always, for doing a beautiful thing for him, for anointing his hair and feet with her perfume. In today’s gospel, we are treated to two different ways of being in the world; two examples of how one might confront scarcity. And as is so often true of the Bible, it contains wisdom for the ages. We humans are consistent down through history, and we see this in both the Pharisees – and eventually, the Roman authorities – who feel their fiefdoms threatened, and in the face of loss of control they choose to tighten their grip. God save us from those things we choose to do based on our need to control, especially when we are afraid. And, of course, women are so often victims of this. By plotting to kill Jesus, they hope to stop their sense of helplessness in its very tracks by asserting what control they can. Mary, on the other hand, has a different approach. We don’t know exactly what she is feeling when she slips from the table and kneels at Jesus’ feet with a pound of expensive perfumed oil. However, her silence says all that is needed. In gratitude for her brother’s life, in grief for her friend’s life, perhaps in fear for what might happen in the near future, she is silent. So, instead of speaking, she lavishes Jesus with an absurdly abundant gift: perfume that would cost as much as a year’s total wages. This is a profound gesture of abundance. John tells us that the whole room filled with fragrance as Mary anointed Jesus. In this little story, we see that there are at least two ways of dealing with ours fears born of scarcity: we can seek control in ways that ultimately keep us in bondage, or we can give all we’ve got.

I confess that in some ways I understand Judas and his theology of scarcity. Many of us have probably been here before. We have found ourselves uncomfortable in the face of generosity, and criticized it in order to limit its power. We’ve also probably stood alongside Mary. We have allowed ourselves to give to our heart’s content – to lavish our love on someone or something else – only to have our motives questioned. When this happens, we can become afraid to risk it happening again. Sometimes our culture – and perhaps our human nature – pressures us to only take measured risks, and of course, in many ways this is wise. But God calls us to love without counting the cost. As George Herbert, poet and priest, has said:

“Lord I have invited all,

And I shall

Still invite, still call to thee:

For it seems but just and right

In my sight,…

Where there is all, there all should be.”

It could be a brave new Lenten discipline to engage the final days of this season as Mary would: to love generously, because we can; to give life our impulse to give abundantly, just as God gives abundantly. This Gospel text is in fact, my friends, Jesus’ anointing and preparation for death, the anointing for his burial.  So here in this moment John is giving us a glimpse into what our relationship towards gratitude might be as informed by the faith of Mary. I am so very grateful for the example of my grandmother, whose quilts were outward and visible signs of her abiding love for her family. They covered us in times of joy and sadness, and the love they represented lives on in my heart—and I am sharing that with all of you, right now. It helps me to understand the extravagance of Mary’s love for Jesus and, in turn, his love for us all. In her quiet and devoted imaginative quilting, my grandmother pointed to something larger than herself, just as Mary, in anointing Jesus, draws our attention to the one whom she anoints. I am so grateful for Mary’s example too, for the gift of her extravagant and life-giving example of compassion, and generosity. She reminds us that Jesus is God’s gift to each of us, right here, right now. It seems, dear one’s, that in so many ways we are in a time of perceived scarcity and fear, and surrounded by the behavior to which these give birth. And yet, Mary’s gestures here, and throughout scripture, gathered together like the redeemed and resurrected scraps of fabric in my grandmother’s quilts, are an invitation to go and do likewise. I think back across the years to that summer morning, and I know that my Grandmother’s love lives in my heart and continues to expand like the universe we inhabit, God’s gift to us all. Just as our Eucharistic table is a place of grace, and compassion where even Judas would be welcome—and remember that he, too, stayed for dinner —we find extravagant gifts of compassion and grace. Mary does not say a word in this text beyond her actions, which speak volumes. Her gift is the anointing of Jesus, and this says so much more than any words could. As another Mary, another of my maternal teachers and mentors has said so well:

Lord, I will learn also to kneel down

Into the world of the invisible,

The inscrutable, and the everlasting.

Then I will move no more than the leaves of a tree

On a day of no wind,

Bathed in light

Like the wanderer who has come home at last

And kneels in peace, done with all unnecessary things;

Every motion; even words. Amen.

Fourth Sunday in Lent – Bill Harkins

The Gospel: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 …..

The holy Gospel…according to Luke… Glory to you, Lord Christ.] All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So Jesus told them this parable: “There was a man who had two sons…

In the Name of the God of Creation, who loves us all, Amen. Grace and peace to you all and welcome to Holy Family on this Fourth Sunday of Lent. The story of the prodigal son is one we know well. It may be one of the best-known stories in the world. But ask “On what occasion did Jesus tell that story?” and it is unlikely many will know. While context isn’t always everything here, it is important. This is especially true of the context of Jesus’ parables. For as John Dominic Crossan has said, parables show the “fault lines” beneath the comfortable surfaces of the worlds we make for ourselves. Parables can be unsettling experiences challenging the reconciliations with which we have become comfortable—the ones, typically, we have created—and replaces them with a deeper level of reconciliation, a reconciliation which is contextually situated at the level of the Incarnation. Among my beloved professors at Vanderbilt Divinity School was Sallie McFague, who lovingly steered me away from law school and toward doctoral work in psychology and religion. She was tough, a New England kind of toughness leavened with compassion, and she taught us that a parable is an extended metaphor. A parable is not an allegory, where the meaning is extrinsic to the story, nor is it an example story where, as in the story of the Good Samaritan, the total meaning is within the story. Rather, as an extended metaphor, the meaning is found only within the story itself although it is not exhausted by that story. While a parable is an aesthetic whole and hence demands rapt attention to the narrative and its configurations, it is also open-ended, expanding ordinary meaning so that from a careful analysis of the parable we learn a new thing, are shocked into a new awareness, often about ourselves! How the new insight occurs is, of course, the heart of the matter; it is enough to say at this point that the two dimensions—the ordinary and the extraordinary—are related intricately within the confines of the parable so that such “God-talk” as we have in the Prodigal Son is an existential, worldly, sensuous story of human life.

This parable is a dangerous story for several reasons. One danger is that it is so powerful and clear that it can take on a life of its own. It runs the risk of becoming mythic in nature. Myths are designed to do just the opposite of parables. They are designed to make us comfortable with that which is familiar. Yet Luke was quite careful in providing a definite setting for the story. It’s in a context which discloses a deeper, richer meaning in an already powerful parable. Luke establishes the setting in a single, clear sentence; “The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to him, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”  Jesus responds with a defense of table fellowship with outcasts, and this time his strategy is to tell a story. His narrative grabs us because it is stories like this that are the everyday stuff of our lives. Such stories are sacred because they are how we come to understand who we are in relation to ourselves, others, and God. As familiar as it is, this parable is full of surprises. And the essence of these surprises is nothing less than a metaphysic of joy. The first surprise is that that the younger son, realizing that he is no farmer, dares to ask his father for his inheritance “pre-posthumously!” This is a dis-honorable request in most any culture, including ours. The second surprise is that the eldest son says nothing. We are surprised that the father goes along with the request. Indeed, the family therapist in me is wondering about and imagining the breakfast table conversation between Mom and Dad; wondering if Dad is “enabling” this kid in such a way as to almost guarantee his failure, not to mention going against the “rules” of the Jewish culture of the day. Call me a Pharisee if you like, but this is not a decision to be entered into unadvisedly. What would you have done with this request?

Another surprise is that the younger son decides to turn the property into liquid capital, probably incurring a capital gains tax in the process—and he blows the entire proceeds. A risky investment here, some big spending there, and a little riotous living thrown in, and our protagonist is then reduced to slopping hogs and missing home. This is a form of exile not to be envied. We are surprised when he comes back home. Give him credit for courage and humility, because he has a plan to enter a new relationship with his family as a salaried worker. And his father welcomes him back. He gives his son multiple signs of full reconciliation in the form of a robe, a ring, and sandals– marking the young son as family. We are surprised when the father ensures reconciliation not only in relation to the son, but with the whole village. He does this by celebrating in a radically immanent table fellowship, a huge party with a roasted, fatted calf as the symbolic and literal centerpiece of the celebration. And all are welcome at that table!

The elder son’s bitter reaction upon returning from the field and discovering the party is one of surprise—his surprise at this fathers’ response—when he says, “All these years I slaved for you and never disobeyed one of your commandments.” We can identify with him, can’t we? And this is the parabolic sting of the story. All religions provide some means by which the sinner can return and make restitution, but to come back to a party? That, indeed, is an Incarnational surprise. And all were welcome. What kind of religion can this be? And as Fred Craddock has asked, “Who in the church today would have attended that party?” When we hear Jesus’ defense of his inclusive table fellowship against the charges of the scribes and Pharisees, we find another surprise. In the portraits of the prodigal son and the compassionate father, the tax collectors and sinners hear a confirmation of the reconciliation they have already found in Jesus’ ministry to them. The scribes and Pharisees are invited to contemplate an image of themselves in the figure of the eldest son, who has completely misread his filial relationship as one of slavery—an alternative view to their own sense of relationship. One of the things I love about this parable is its non-binary nature. It’s a developmental achievement to move from living in an either/or, all or nothing world to one that is both/and. This requires giving up control and living in a world that is more ambiguous and messier at times. And this allows us to see reconciliation with others whom we would relegate to the margins…persons with whom we may disagree or even don’t like very much. Reconciliation becomes more than agreeing to disagree. It means acknowledging one’s own vulnerability in ways perhaps uncomfortable at times, especially when our need to be right exceeds being in relationship.

Reconciliation in this parable means to be given more than one deserves, especially by God, who flings wide the gates of generosity. Indeed, our whole notion of karma, and quid pro quo—of reaping exactly what we sow—is thrown open to question. In relation to the God of Incarnation whom Jesus proclaims—and embodies—we can fall from justice; we can fall from faith; we can fall from righteousness; but we cannot fall from grace. This is the context of Luke’s parable, and all our acts of compassion, and of our experience of joy at the open table. Like the prodigal father in this parable…for he, too, had been on a journey, I have two sons and for me, this story is a symbol for all the promises, which were made to me and the energy and care which nourished and created me as a human being, and which I now extend to my sons, and to their families.  It has ultimately to do with a sense of the basic trustworthiness of the world and the consequent freedom to commit ourselves to action. We can become through the story a receiver and a maker of promises; this gives a unity of past, present, and future for us, and hence gives him us, too, a “story,” identity. As a student of psychology, I know that our basic attachments, especially early on, speak to the depth of each person’s biography and lie at the heart of all our stories. In the depths of this story lies a keen sense of the holy and the sacred: the basic solicitude of life, which makes graceful freedom possible.

Yes, this parable is dangerous because the context of it is radical table fellowship; the intentional, ritual pattern of eating and drinking and telling stories with sinners. In this case, “sin” means a refusal to grow, and a willingness to be kept in bondage to old narratives—of fear, of needing to be right, and of power and control, of relegating people to the status of the “other” based on gender, sexual orientation, politics, and on and on. The teller of the parable of the Prodigal Son beheld a vision of reality that demanded a breakthrough beyond one-dimensional, univocal language—it demanded metaphor, for such is always the route out of established meaning to new meaning; and metaphor in turn became the proper vehicle for the expression and communication of what they beheld—it is the language for “a body that thinks.” It’s an invitation to go deeper than what we see on social media, which is perhaps the best example of refusal to grow, or the assumptions we make about others based on our fears and former narratives. Jesus was killed for this reason—he showed another way to an Empire bent on exclusion rather than embrace. We are called to remember this, and to weave the meaning of this parable into the tapestry of our own lives. Reconciliation is finally about table fellowship, where we are all at home in relation to the God who, like the father in the parable, waits for us to come home, to celebrate in joy. After all, we are all just walking one another home. Amen.

Third Sunday in Lent – Bill Harkins

The Collect

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Luke 13:1-9

At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them–do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'”

In the Name of the God of Creation, who loves us all, Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this Third Sunday of Lent. Today’s Gospel reading includes the parable of the barren fig tree, an evocative illustration of being stuck in a pattern of unfruitfulness—or what Henry David Thoreau called a state of “quiet desperation.” I imagine that for each of us the conditions that might lead to depleted and unproductive soil are uniquely ours, yet with common features to our stories. Perhaps it is the soil of unhealthy family dynamics, or unresolved grief, or anger, which leads at times to bitterness. Perhaps we have deep questions about why God allows bad things to happen. It is quite human to ask, as did those in our Gospel reading for today, if these events are somehow punishment for something we have done or left undone. Jesus responds to their question with a parable, and the metaphor from today’s Gospel, with its evocative image of a withering and unproductive fig tree, suggests a person disconnected from his or her own soul and from the wholeness that the Light of Christ can restore. It is a Lenten text, appropriate to this season of discernment. I don’t believe ours is a vindictive God, and I do believe that because we have free will sometimes our choices cut us off from life-giving and generative possibilities. Perhaps Lent is a season for digging around our roots, asking for forgiveness when that is what is needed, and hoping we can bear fruit in the coming season. I believe this is true. And God waits for us in that new season.

In this lovely parable, it is not until the vineyard owner expresses his discontent with the situation that the gardener is motivated to change. The owner desired that the tree flourish and grow, but the gardener seemed content to let this state of horticultural lassitude go on for another year. Understood theologically, there are times when our confession—saying out loud what has remained unsaid—can be the occasion for grace, reminding us that we are to care for and nurture the soil of our souls, and that our lives are to be lived as fully as possible. God fully glorified, Irenaeus said, is a human being fully alive. The season of Lent calls us to self-examination and repentance. Indeed, the word “Lent” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word meaning “to lengthen,” or, put differently, to “spring forth,” as in that season when the light of day gradually grows longer.

Today’s Gospel brings this home to us in an urgent way. I wonder if you have a memory of a time or event in your life that demonstrates this parable for you…a time perhaps when you were rooted in unyielding soil, cut off from the rich ground of your own soul and from the life giving light of Christ… a memory perhaps of a lost and squandered opportunity, or a season of living in darkness. One example that comes to mind in my own life takes me back all the way to high school, a time of life when for most, if not all of us, life is marked by the intensity of every kind of emotion and experience, a memory I shared at our Men’s Retreat last fall.

In the mid-summer before my senior year in high school a new student arrived in our neighborhood. He was from Southern California, and he fit the stereotype perfectly. With blond surfer good looks and an easy manner, he quickly stole the hearts of the girls at school and was the envy of all the guys—though we would not admit it. In the Sandy Springs community of the early 70’s, in many ways a small town really, he was rather exotic. Along with my football teammates, I simply chose to ignore him. Until, that is, he decided to go out for football. When the coach, in a moment of grace, granted him permission to join the team, we were filled with righteous indignation. After all, he had not suffered through years of two-a-day practices in the August Georgia heat or cut his teeth on Gray-Y football on the dirt fields of Chastain Park as had most of us. He was a stranger among us, in this our senior year, and my little band of brothers would not let him in. We considered it unfair for the coach to let this latecomer onto the team, not this team, and not this year. This was our year. And we were a good team. And so, the cadre closed its ranks. He seemed to take this with the same good-natured equanimity with which, outwardly, he took everything else. He quickly made friends with others at school who, according to the proscribed rules of our football fiefdom, were also social outcasts. He seemed to get along with every strata of our stratified universe at a time and place when this was very hard to do. In my own way I was testing these boundaries as well, writing for the school paper and joining the drama club—things football players did not do. But he was transcending boundaries as if he lived in a different universe altogether. Secretly, I admired him.

Truth be told, however, I was also jealous of him, and when the coach let him join the team my envy only increased, because we happened to play the same position. And he was very good; lightning fast with good hands, he was ideal for the position of slot-back and flanker in our power-I option offense (I am dating myself here, to be sure). Thankfully, this scheme also called for multiple substitutions and combinations, so we both got a lot of playing time over the course of a very good season. Yes, I secretly admired him, and I learned from him. But I would not let him in. When track season began, he replaced a dear friend on the sprint medley relay team, of which I was also a member, and largely due to his contributions, we finished third in the state, setting a new school record in the process. In practice I refused to let him beat me on the track, harboring a secret fear that he was faster than me. And perhaps that was true.

One afternoon that spring, just a couple of months before graduation, I found him sitting alone in the locker room, located off to one side of the gym. He was crying. Letting the blinders of my own jealousy momentarily fall away, I sat down on the bench across from him and asked him what was wrong. He was quiet for what seemed a long time, and then, slowly, his story unfolded. His father was a prominent misogynistic physician in southern California who left his family after several affairs. My teammate moved with his mother and younger sister into a religious commune that we might refer to as a cult. His mother’s mental health deteriorated after his parents divorced, and he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Atlanta. With his mother now in a state hospital in California, and his father involved in yet another relationship, his life was in chaos. He worried about his younger sister, who was becoming involved with drugs and alcohol, and he felt he needed to stay close to her rather than go to college back in California. He wanted desperately to go home. He told me all this as we sat in the late afternoon sunlight of the gym, with motes of dust glinting and floating in vertical shafts in the sunlit air, and only the distant sounds of bouncing basketballs breaking the silence. I sat there and stewed in the juices of my own blinding self-righteous envy, and I realized that his good looks and easy-going manner had masked his pain, and that all of us who might have been his friends—had been instead the gatekeepers to his emotional prison and loneliness. I felt deeply ashamed. I tried over the last weeks of school to befriend him, but really, it was too late. Soon the forces of time and destiny swept us up in a river of change, and after graduation I never saw or heard from him again.

I often wonder what became of him, but I do not know. I heard that he did find his way back to college in California, but a note I sent to him was returned unopened. I did know that I needed to repent, and that summer I made my way to Holy Innocents’ church—I had grown up Presbyterian—and I began a series of conversations with the Rector, slowly leading me eventually to the Episcopal Church, and ultimately, to be standing here with all of you. I needed to acknowledge my envy, a form of idolatry that had kept me from the life-giving possibilities of relationship. Yes, I had been guilty of wastefulness in relationship, of envy, of detachment from the fertile and life-giving soil of the Good News.

Yet, unproductive and toxic guilt, so common in our culture of gratuitous public confession, is at times its own form of idolatry, is finally not the appropriate response to this recognition. Confession in the Episcopal tradition occurs in community, as was true in this sacred space this morning, and in the context of worship, and in response to the life-giving light of the Gospel. It is not about publicly bearing one’s soul for the sake of relieving us of toxic guilt. It is not as if God is engineering punishment for any of the things any of us leave undone or are guilty of having done knowing full well that we should have done otherwise. Would God have sent Jesus to teach, and heal, and restore unworthy souls to wholeness if this were the case? Admitting my blame and culpability in the case of my erstwhile teammate those many years ago was not going to protect me from bad things…this is not how God works. What is our operative theology of crisis and loss, of repentance, of forgiveness? People do this not to interfere with the “will of God,” but rather because it is in keeping with the example of Jesus, who healed the leper, made straight the limbs of the paralytic, gave sight to the blind, exorcised the demons. Were these ailments punishments from a God angry about misdeeds? They were not. God does not micromanage our lives such that we are the reasons for catastrophes that occur by virtue of our having displeased God. Jesus did not tell those who fell at his feet in pain to go suffer a few years longer to pay for their sins. But he does ask us to repent. In the Gospel for today we hear the clear message that if Israel does not turn from its idolatry, does not turn from seeing its vocation in terms of privilege and worldly preeminence, the idols it worships will exact a high price. So it is for us. What I learned, and am still learning, from my experience with my high school teammate is that my envy—pure old-fashioned jealousy, caused me to deny the abundance of God that might have allowed the relationship to flourish, bloom, and grow. I was like the fig tree that did not bear fruit. And, to continue the metaphor, I have often found myself wishing for just another year, just a bit more time to get to know him and to respond to his story with compassion, without being blinded by my operative theology of scarcity—my belief that there was simply not enough love to go around. But it was not to be. Rather, my repentance, and the recognition of my own fears borne of envy, and the vulnerability that it opened like a deep wound in my soul, had something to teach me. It is teaching me still. Jesus says that terrible things sometimes happen. “I am not going to focus on Herod,” he says in the Gospel last week, “and I am not going to worry about Pilate.”  Bad things happen sometimes, and it is not our fault. As Kate Bowler at Duke says so well, “no matter how carefully we schedule our days, master our emotions, and try to wring our best life now from our better selves, we cannot solve the problem of finitude… When they don’t know what else to say, people say “Everything happens for a reason…The only thing worse than saying this is pretending that you know the reason…I was immediately worn out,” she laments, by the tyranny of prescriptive joy.” In this parable, Jesus asks that we attend to what we are feeling when we look in the mirror and see someone whom we do not like, whose life is not bearing fruit. We are asked to be careful about our projections, especially when we make assumptions about people who do not share our views, or whose family constellations are different from ours. Regardless of the form our sin is taking, it is keeping us from flourishing and bearing fruit. Attend to that, and to the fact that we are bumping up against our own limitations and humanness. Let it be the occasion for choosing life. Let our confession be the turning over of the soil of our souls, in preparation for planting the life-giving seeds of repentance. If we name what we see, we may be afraid, but this can be life-giving. We may be afraid, but God is still the God of compassion, and our fear is not the final answer. We may be afraid, but Lent is a time for turning toward the light, connecting with the deep and rich soil of the Good News, and allowing our very souls to, well, lengthen, grow, and flourish. Let’s remember the miracles of the burning bush, and of the miracle of photosynthesis in which trees eat sunlight, and carbon dioxide, and give us in turn the very air we breathe. As Welsh poet and priest reminds us in a timely Lenten poem, these moments of deeper self-awareness may be a gift.

I have seen the sun break through

to illuminate a small field

for a while, and gone my way

and forgotten it. But that was the

pearl of great price, the one field that had

treasure in it. I realize now

that I must give all that I have

to possess it.

Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after

an imagined past. It is the turning

aside like Moses to the miracle

of the lit bush, to a brightness

that seemed as transitory as your youth

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

~ R.S. Thomas

We may be afraid, and we may be in a hurry to move on, but the harrowing of our souls that occurs through the recognition of our own fear and vulnerability, and when appropriate, our need to repent and apologize, can become the source of new growth, new relationships, and new life in Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Second Sunday in Lent -Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Luke 13:31-35

Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'”

In the Name of the God of Creation, who loves us all, Amen. Welcome to Holy Family on this Second Sunday in Lent, and if you are visiting us this morning, please let us know so we can give you a warm Holy Family greeting…and welcome home! Today’s Gospel reading contains at least two themes…courage, and prophets. I want to wonder together as to how these might inform our Lenten journey. I want to suggest that both courage and being prophetic are intimately related to one another and, indeed, it is only by having the courage to use our imagination that prophetic witness is possible. Donald Winnicott, a British psychiatrist and deeply faithful Anglican, once said that he knew his patients were getting better when thy recover, or discovered for the first time, their ability to be imaginative. I agree, and I have experienced this in my own clinical practice, and even here, at Holy Family. But we may be tempted to say, “I’m no prophet…I just live my life day to day and try to do the best I can.” I believe we as Christians are called to be both prophetic, and courageous. But what might this mean and is it possible that it has everything to do with how we live day by day?

I suspect that there are at least two kinds of courage. One is the immediate and situational courage of the person who, in a moment of extreme need, summons the courage to face an imminent danger. This is the courage of the by-stander who pushes someone out of the way of oncoming traffic or jumps into a raging river to save someone struggling to swim at great risk to him or herself. Of course, such courage is not just a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing but ultimately is a display of character, an accumulation of traits and beliefs, training and patterns of behavior that have been developed and exercised over time, preparing one to act courageously in any given moment.

There is a second kind of courage as well, this one displayed not simply in a single moment or act but in anticipating a significant, daunting, or even frightening challenge and not turning away from it but rather meeting it head on. This is also a matter of character – character that has emerged from a lifetime of facing fears and that is also being cultivated in those moments of accepting challenges and responsibilities that one could, if one chose, easily avoid.

Perhaps both kinds of courage Jesus displays in the Gospel text this week. The Pharisees warn Jesus to consider a kind of witness protection program because Herod is threatening to kill him. We don’t know who these Pharisees are or what motivates them, and it doesn’t really matter. We just know that they tell Jesus to run and save his life…and that Jesus refuses. Instead, he will keep to the road appointed, traveling the arduous path to Jerusalem like so many earlier prophets. This commitment to embrace his destiny for the sake of humanity is the very embodiment of this second kind of courage.

I admire the steadfast courage that Jesus displays in moving forward to Jerusalem, and the cross, on behalf of the world God loves so much. What struck me this time, however, is the critical role that vulnerability plays in this kind of courage. In our healing service this week, and our Wednesday night Lenten class, vulnerability is perhaps the key topic. To anticipate challenge and suffering and not look away is, by definition, to make oneself vulnerable for the sake of others. Sometimes the challenge lies externally, and sometimes it lies within us—and sometimes it is both.

It’s important to name this because, as a culture, we don’t often equate vulnerability with courage and strength. With care, love, and concern, perhaps, but not often with courage and strength. At our worst, we see vulnerability as a sign of weakness, something to be avoided at all costs, especially in an age of hyper-masculinity devoid of empathy. At our best, we recognize the need to be vulnerable to those we care about most deeply. But we don’t often see vulnerability as essential to living a courageous life or as a realistic virtue. Gregory the Great, one of the forefathers and mothers of pastoral care and counseling, understood well the intricacies of the human heart and the ease with which growth in holiness may be compromised by self-deception unless we are willing to be appropriately vulnerable. He wrote: “The pastor must understand that vices commonly masquerade as virtues. The person who is not generous claims to be frugal, while the one who is a prodigal describes himself as generous. Thus, it is necessary that the director of souls discern between vices and virtues with great care.”

Much later, the psychiatrist Carl Jung would write about the “shadow” of self-deception among leaders, especially autocratic leadership. This can include religious leaders as well, and is a cautionary tale for clergy, who can so easily develop autocratic and controlling styles of leadership. Jung’s work emphasizes the need for leaders to understand their own motivations, biases, and unconscious patterns. This self-awareness is crucial for making ethical decisions and fostering trust within an organization, including churches. Jung believed that the process of individuation, or integrating the various aspects of the psyche, is essential for personal growth and wholeness. Authentic leadership fosters trust, collaboration, and innovation. It may be uncomfortable at times for everyone, but the alternative is staying stuck, and an inability to stretch and grow to meet new challenges and rewrite old narratives. Pope Gregory understood this, and he knew that true leadership requires humility, and transparency. It is a huge step towards consciousness when we become responsible for our behaviors and how it impacts others. When we let go of judgments and see each person for the individual they really are; we have a chance to have a more authentic relationship and interactions. Carl Rogers found that “whenever there is an authentic encounter between two individuals – healing and growth take place”. Carl Jung even stated that “the spirit of evil lies in empathy deficits”. Empathy, a byproduct of vulnerability, is indeed the single most important requirement for growth and change. If we do not have empathy for someone, they will often act in ways that make empathy impossible. And thus, the human drama – we view the world through our emotional wounds and wound others (& stay stuck) by acting out of the pain from our wounds.

In today’s Gospel, however, Jesus demonstrates that vulnerability is essential to courage, stands at the core of the Christian life, and invites us to discover the strength of being open to the needs of those around us and responding with compassion. Sometimes this means speaking the truth in love. In this passage, Jesus chooses the image of a hen gathering her brood of chicks to her for protection and safety to illustrate his love and concern for God’s people. Beyond the feminine, compassionate imagery that invites re-imagining some of our views is also an image of unparalleled vulnerability. To be a parent, as Vicky and I discovered, is to be deeply vulnerable to the vicissitudes and challenges of parenthood. And now, we know that becoming grandparents makes us vulnerable in new ways. In part, this is because we cannot protect our families from all the challenges of life—nor should we, and that not only leaves parents profoundly vulnerable but promises a level of suffering that we simply would not endure if you had not bound yourself so fully to your child. As a friend of mine once said, a parent is often only as happy as her or his least happy child. Matters of healthy self-differentiation notwithstanding, now that’s vulnerability!

And it is precisely this characteristic that Jesus embodies and by extension invites us to attribute to God – that God becomes vulnerable to all the vicissitudes of human life by becoming one of and one with God’s children through the incarnation. God suffers with and for us. In addition, Jesus’ choice of this image has helped me realize that it is our vulnerability that spurs our courage and nourishes our strength simply because we can and will do things for those we love that you simply would not or could not do for ourself. And so, Jesus continues to Jerusalem not to prove himself fearless or a hero, not to make a sacrifice for sin to a judgmental God, not even to combat death and the devil. Rather, Jesus marches to Jerusalem and embraces the cross that awaits him there out of profound love for the people around him, a mother’s fierce love that will stop at nothing to protect her children. And because he has spoken the truth in relation to Empire, he is even more vulnerable!

Few people have taught me more about vulnerability than Brene Brown. Through her TED Talks and books, Brown the “story-teller/researcher” invites us to recognize that while vulnerability inevitably opens us up to feeling things we might want to avoid, it also spurs us to be more authentically human and more caring, compassionate, and courageous than we could otherwise be. Brown reminds us that courage comes from the Latin cor – “heart” – and defines courage as living from the heart, the willingness to embrace our vulnerability in order to become our authentic selves. The etymology of authentic shares root meaning with words such as “author” and “authority.” Courage, then, might be the kind of whole-hearted living that comes from believing that as God’s children we are enough and that those around us are also God’s beloved children and therefore deserve our love, empathy, and respect. And, that we can grow in empathy and compassion, a worthy goal during our Lenten journey.

In both my clinical work and consultations with small businesses and congregations, I have seen so often that leadership goes off the rails when the leader has lost the capacity for humility, and appropriate vulnerability, and transparency. I told my doctoral students that if I was working with patients, and congregations, and students, I would be in a clinical/pastoral consultation accountability group. We need others to keep us humble, and we need disciplines and practices to remind us that we live in a non-dualistic universe of “both/and” rather than “either/or.” Once we begin to believe that our way of being in the world is the only way, and we think that the rules that apply to others do not apply to us, we risk narcissism, and we lose the capacity for empathy. Among Gregory’s quotes is that “The test of Leadership is what happens when you leave.” I agree.  What if in this passage we see Jesus not merely acting courageously but embracing who he was called to be for the sake of those he loved, and thereby inviting us to be who we are called to be for the sake of those around us? What would our community look like if we decided together to live whole-heartedly, making room to name our vulnerabilities in a cross-shaped confidence that God is with us and has given us sufficient resources – including each other! – to not simply endure the challenges before us but to flourish as we discover that God meets us most reliably precisely in our places of vulnerability?  As Henri Nowwen has said;

“It is important to understand our suffering. It is often necessary to search for the origins of our mental and emotional struggles and to discover how other people’s actions and our response to their actions have shaped the way we think, feel, and act. Most of all, it is freeing to become aware that we do not have to be victims of our past and can learn new ways of responding. But there is a step beyond the recognition and identification of the facts of life. There is even a step beyond choosing how to live our own life story. It is the greatest step a human being can take. It is the step of forgiveness.”

Perhaps the task before us this week, Dear Ones, is to invite ourselves to name where we are feeling most vulnerable – whether in a relationship, a job, amid pressure from peers, and so on – and to remind ourselves that God is with us in these places of vulnerability and that God’s grace may lead to courage, and wholeness, and compassion. To be vulnerable is a courageous thing, and to learn from the vulnerability of the God we know best, from the manger to the cross is also a courageous thing indeed. We can do this together…

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye,

clear. What we need is here. ~Wendell Berry

First Sunday in Lent Year 3 – Bill Harkins

The Collect

Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Luke 4:1-13

In the name of the God of creation who loves us all, Amen. Welcome to each of you on this First Sunday of Lent. We are so glad you are here, and if you are visiting this morning, please let us get a chance to know you. and, let me say welcome to you all. Like many of you, I made my way to worship on Ash Wednesday this past week, and just in time for the 6pm service a cold, steady rain and wind began. Although the root word for Lent comes from the Old English Lengten, meaning “the lengthening of days in the spring,” Wednesday seemed anything but spring-like. But let’s remember that our Lenten preparations are not in the service of Good Friday, but rather in preparation for Easter—for Resurrection.

Moreover, historically, Lent provided a time when converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. These reminders point, then, to the paschal mystery, a mystery that the theologian Ronald Rolheiser has called “a process of transformation within which we are given both new life, and new spirit.”

Now, by this I do not mean to suggest that Good Friday is not essential to the journey. A seminary student of mine once said that his denomination, which shall remain nameless, prefers to skip over Good Friday altogether, and go from Palm Sunday straight to Easter Sunday. I found this instructive as I was making my way into the Episcopal Church many years ago. I am glad we take each step of the journey seriously. However, the observance of a Holy Lent as described in the Ash Wednesday service—of self-examination; repentance; prayer, fasting, and self-denial; reading and meditating on God’s word—all point finally not to Good Friday but to Easter. Hence, we hear at the end of the Ash Wednesday service, “at the last we may come to his eternal joy.” This is a joy made possible by resurrection, by the glorious paschal mystery of Easter. The ashes imposed upon us on Wednesday were outward and visible signs of this inward journey, and symbolic of the setting aside of 40 days as a time of reflection and repentance in the service of this joy, a liturgical, personal, communal journey, if you will, toward and in relation to, the source of that joy. This journey can be a harrowing one. Thus, the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples includes the phrase, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” And as one who was tempted, Jesus was well acquainted with what it meant to face such trials. His forty days in the wilderness recall the fasts of Moses, and Elijah, as well as the desert wandering of the people of Israel.  There are many rich possibilities in the images found in today’s readings. I want to focus for just a moment on one in particular—the spirituality of desire. Ron Rolheiser, a Catholic theologian whose work I admire, has defined spirituality as “what we do with the divine spark inside us, and how we channel and discipline that flame—that Eros.” Rolheiser suggests that healthy spirituality serves two purposes. First, it must put some fire in our souls; keep us energized, fully alive with hope and a deep abiding sense that life is worth living. Second, it must hold us together, with integrity and congruence. It must give us a narrative sense of who we are, where we have been, and where we are going. This divine spark, this internal, God given fire, can also be dangerous, because it is such a powerful force. As Dostoyevsky said, God’s terrible insistence on human freedom in the form of Jesus’ “miracle of restraint” in the Gospel narrative is so absolute, that he granted us that power to live as though God did not exist, indeed, to crucify him. Jesus knew this firsthand as he stood beside the Tempter in the desert. The single most important issue in this narrative is, I believe, how Jesus chooses to use his “vocatio,” his calling, his divine spark of love, of Eros—in short, how he chose to live. If we focus on Jesus’ death, on Good Friday, we miss the point. And it is fascinating how in this text from Luke, as in the Matthean account, Satan quotes scripture in his attempt to persuade Jesus to use his Divine spark for his own gain—to take advantage of Jesus’ own vulnerability borne of hunger, to turn stones into bread. This passage is what prompted Shakespeare to point out in “A Merchant of Venice,” “the devil can cite  scripture for his own purpose.”

Seeing scripture used as a means of temptation reminds us of the ways we, too, can sometimes turn scripture into our own forms of idolatry. Jesus’ vocation, his use of his divine fire, draws him in a different direction as he seeks to discern God’s call. Think with me for a moment about this.

On the face of it, there is nothing theologically wrong with what Satan is telling Jesus in the desert. The power of God to which Jesus has access can provide food for the hungry, and, as we know, it will, in the form of loaves and fishes. Jesus does indeed bear “the name before which every knee shall bend, and every tongue confess” his lordship—and they will. God’s care for each one of God’s children is trustworthy. Every point that Satan makes is, in a sense, biblically inerrant. Every point is, in a sense, true. Thank God that Jesus is not the kind to have a bumper sticker on his chariot that reads:

“God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” Thank God that Jesus is not the type who believes that every word of scripture is applicable to his circumstances and to his immediate needs and agendas. Because while each of Satan’s points are, in a sense, “true,” they are used here in the service of the seductive lure of social, religious, and political power in favor of uncompromising obedience to God. Jesus must decide to what end his vocation shall serve: he must decide how to discipline and make use of his Divine spark of Eros—of God’s love. Later God will, through Jesus, bring vast crowds together for a feast; later, we believe, God will be revealed in a messianic banquet at the end of history; but now is not the time and these are not the circumstances for Jesus to use God’s power to provide. As the biblical scholar Sarah Dylan Breuer has noted, the kind of authority Jesus uses here—the kind of leadership he demonstrates—is most fully revealed through his self-giving love, radical openness, and forgiveness. Turn on the TV or radio, pick up a newspaper any day, and you can be sure someone is making a killing on Jesus’ death—how he died, who was to blame; someone is quoting scripture to consolidate power or achieve political gain; someone is searching the bible for indications that we deserve the privilege and prosperity we have and are justified in keeping others down to further it. But Jesus showed us a different way. He points us in a direction suggestive of keeping a Holy Lent. He demonstrates that spirituality is finally about how to handle the fire—the Divine spark of energy—that each of us has. As Rolheiser has suggested, we think that energy is ours, and it is not. We think we can control it all on our own, and we cannot. We think we have all the answers, by virtue of our personal interpretation of scripture. We do not. As our brother Basil Pennington (who was at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, in Conyers) has said, “We don’t have all the answers. But we do, thank God, have some answers: answers that give birth to more questions…and it is good to live in the questions. An answer too simple is closed; it is finished; that’s it. It goes nowhere and leaves little room for hope. A question, the mystery, opens space for us. It is full of possibility. It gives hope of life and ever more abundant life. Our faith, solid as it might be, is full of questions. And therefore full of life and hope.” Indeed. The paschal mystery is the question of how we shall receive new life and new spirit—the new life and spirit of resurrection. Our preparation over these forty days and nights is in the service of discerning what form that that new life and spirit will take; how we shall use our vocation—our calling; and to what end our divine spark shall shine forth. And thanks be to God that we in this place do this in community. “Come in from the desert,” Jesus says be nourished by the body of Christ; Join with brothers and sisters to engage in this discernment and to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit; be suspicious of any voice that would suggest that God’s power is to be used for our own privilege; trust rather the call—that still, small voice in the wilderness, which extends good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed. These are the ends to which we suffer in the desert, and discern, and receive the new life of the paschal mystery. May we use Lent as a time for sitting still—for preparation for new life and new spirit. Let’s seek to discern how we shall live—and how we shall use the divine spark we have been given.. As the Welsh priest and poet RS Thomas said,

I think that maybe

I will be a little surer

of being a little nearer.

That’s all. Eternity

is in the understanding

that that little is more than enough.

Amen

Last Sunday after Epiphany – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Gospel: Luke 9:28-36

Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning and welcome to Holy Family as we observe the last Sunday in Epiphany, and hear the story of a mountain top gathering replete with sleep deprived disciples, saints of old, and a dazzling light show. It is a story guaranteed to mystify and enchant all ages, from children to those not quite so young. Vicky and I fall into the latter category, and now that we are grandparents of 7 year-old twins, Jack and Alice, and a six year-old granddaughter, Sophia, and two year-old Georgie, we have been re-acquainting ourselves with children’s films and books, many of which are, I suspect, meant for grownups too. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast experienced a revival of sorts with Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame as Belle, the benevolent bibliophile who learns to love the beast and sees humanity hidden beneath his outward appearance. It is a film about a transfiguration of sorts, with themes of integration on our journey to wholeness. And if we use our imagination, we can see the glorious appearance of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus in this Lukan Gospel passage as being a little bit like the Beast’s transfiguration at the end of the film, when he is lifted by mysterious forces and enveloped in light that erupts out from him in this moment of transformation. This is the stuff of Hollywood, of course, and we do love stories about change and renewal.

On the other hand, in a sense, the Transfiguration in Luke is NOT the same as the climax of the story in Beauty and the Beast. Rather, it’s a little more like the moment Princess Fiona’s true self is revealed in the film Shrek—another movie about transformation—filled with awe-inspiring light and dramatic music leading us to expect a Beauty and the Beast-style ending. Instead, Shrek subverts our expectations, like many of Jesus’ parables. The light subsides to reveal “true love’s true form,” as the song goes, and we discover that true love’s true form isn’t one of conventional beauty and royalty, but rather one that makes Fiona perfectly suited for a life of companionship with Shrek in the swamp — a life that the story teaches us has the potential for a lot more abundance and love than life in a palace.

Indeed, a central message in the story of Jesus’ transfiguration in all three gospels is that the moment of dazzling glory comes not at the end of the gospel, but in the middle. It is not the climactic moment in which Jesus’ true nature is decisively revealed for all to see. After the light show subsides (and in Luke, after the divine voice, proclaims Jesus as God’s chosen), Jesus goes back to looking just as he has while they’ve been traveling around Galilee, teaching, healing, and setting people free from the powers that bound them and closed them off from community. The disciples tell no one of what they have seen. When the disciples are ready to proclaim their message to the world, at the very center of it will be a moment that comes much later in the story, the moment in which Jesus’ true nature is revealed and lifted up for any to see: that is to say, Jesus’ true nature will be revealed on the Cross. In verse 31, Luke tells us that Moses and Elijah appear in glory and speak of Jesus’ “departure, which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.” The Greek word used for “departure” here is exodus. The connection between this Gospel text and the experience of Moses’ descent from Sinai is made clear. And we heard both stories this morning.

The Disciples witnessed a vision, and wanted to stay atop the mountain forever. They could not. The author and theologian Henri Nouwen has said that the Transfiguration offers access through the gate of the visible—a very human Jesus—into the mystery of the invisible—the face of God. In this Gospel story, Jesus becomes a kind of luminous narrative—a living story, if you will, pointing to a wonderfully mysterious truth. Whatever happened on the mountain had to have meaning on level ground, that place where the sacred and profane meet in mundane, quotidian everydayness. The disciples hear a voice from heaven saying “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” This repeats a common thread in the use of the term “beloved” and in the command to listen, to pay attention. And so with this the mountaintop experience comes to an end, and it is time to return to the everydayness of life, and a journey which may lead into unknown territory.

Begging the question, what might it mean to “practice Transfiguration,” theologically understood, once one has descended the mountain? And keeping with two of the identified themes of this passage—those of light and of listening— how might this inform our practices of paying attention to the light of the Transfiguration in the everyday moments of our lives, and not just those occasional mountaintop experiences? This may mean recognizing that in some way we, too, are to be bearers of that Light. The valley—and the road to Jerusalem that lay within it, is where Jesus continued his ministry. How do we embody our mountaintop experiences, including our journey into Christ in the Eucharist, once we have returned to the valley of day-to-day life to “Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord”? How do our disciplines and practices inform both our mountaintop experiences and life upon our return to level ground where we are called to see Christ in the face of the other, and respect the dignity of every human being?

Some time ago I journeyed with my two sons to the Northern Cascades for a mountaineering trip, the ultimate goal of which was to summit Mt. Baker. Or, so I thought. After several days of preparation, we departed our base-camp at 2:00am for the summit attempt. The night was clear and cold, and our team, roped together, ascended steadily up the glacier. Each deliberate step brought us closer the hoped for sunrise on the summit of this jewel of the Cascades. Soon, however, lightning appeared off to the west as a line of powerful, pre-dawn thunderstorms announced a fast-moving cold front. In consultation with our wise guide, we made the group decision to return to camp, the wind, rain, and lightning close behind. I wanted the mountaintop, and I got a storm. I was disappointed, and later, in conversation with my sons, in which I voiced my regret, our older son, the most experienced mountaineer among us, he said something I’ll never forget. “Dad, you never intentionally climb into a storm. That’s mountaineering 101. We did the right thing.” His wise, old soul younger brother nodded, and pointed toward the Roosevelt-Deming glacier glittering like a thousand jewels below us. We were together on an unforgettable adventure, and that was all that really mattered. What I remember most about the trip now, back in life on level ground, is not the fact that we did not reach the summit, but that we created lifelong memories, and that our disciplines and practices led us to remember what was most valuable and important—our love for one another, showing up, being present, and fully alive. Like Peter, perhaps, who wanted to remain on the mountain top, I had to reconcile my return to level ground with a deeper awareness of the nature of the journey, a journey perhaps more ambiguous, mysterious, and risky. The disciples would descend the mountain, but—and this is where our Mt. Baker narrative and this one part company—they would climb into a storm of life-changing proportions with Jesus in Jerusalem. Perhaps with Peter we are tempted to say “Let’s stay on this mountain, and build huts here” when practicing Transfiguration on level ground may mean transformation and change beyond anything we had imagined.

Sometime in the late 4^th or early 5^th century, St. Augustine preached a sermon on the nature of the Eucharist in which he said, “Behold what you are…become what you receive.” For Augustine the disciplines and practices of the sacraments are the occasion for both a deeper awareness of what one is, and a living into what one might become as one in the Body of Christ. The Transfiguration is, in part, a living into a sense of wonder about the mystery of such transformations. And so with Fiona, and Shrek, we learn that true love’s true form may be found in the most surprising and life-giving ways. And with Augustine, and with James, and John, and especially Peter, who was so very human, and for whom falling down, was ultimately falling upward into grace, we understand that in Christ we are created in the image of God, Imago Dei. And we know in new ways that God’s love will follow us regardless of where we go. These are signs of grace and hope bountiful plenty to take with us down from the mountaintop, regardless of where our practices of transfiguration may take us. Amen.

Seventh Sunday after Epiphany – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect

O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Luke 6:27-38

Jesus said, “I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you…

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. 

Deep River,

My home is over Jordan.

Deep River, Lord.

I want to cross over into campground.

The words of this powerful spiritual speak so well to us and to the life and ministry of so many, from Martin Luther King and Ghandi to all those who work for justice and compassion. Campground is that place where justice is realized, and compassion and hospitality allow us to see the face of the other and accept them as children of God. And these words remind of that night in Memphis, when Martin Luther King said, “I’m not fearing any man. I’ve been to the mountaintop… and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you…These words resonate the themes of both the Exodus story and of Luke’s Gospel. Like Moses, he was leading his people out of bondage to powers and principalities. He was formalizing and clarifying a new relationship with the old order. He referred to the mountaintop experience of Moses in such a way as to place in context the nature of his service and, if necessary, his suffering. His speech also exhibited the codification of a new law in relation to contemporary social issues. His solidarity with the Memphis garbage workers, on strike because of racially biased, unfair wages, called for a transcendence of the current law. He called for a new covenant. His voice spoke out against the injustice of laws that violated the fundamental rights of his fellow human beings and, though “legal” in the technical sense, were unjust. His identification as a contemporary Christian allowed him to call upon these two traditions with integrity and power. His suffering and eventual death were in the extreme an example of how service to God a particular kind of freedom is indeed. Had he been bound by old codes of vengeance; the movement would have never gotten beyond the “eye for an eye” stage and gone the way of all such movements. Insisting on the practice of non-retaliation and using the language of the Exodus out of Egypt, King manifested in his own life journey the tensions inherent in both the Exodus account and the Gospel of Luke. There was, to be sure, ambiguity and suffering. The way was not always clear, nor is it now. Jesus is rarely who we want him to be. We want him to be comfortable, reassuring, and safe, but sometimes he is none of these things. Jesus’ teaching is hard. If we really hear it, no matter where we are situated in terms of economics, society, or politics, it will make us uncomfortable, unsettled, and feel decidedly challenged. Jesus was and is a radical — not in the sense being on the extreme ends of the political spectrum, but in the literal sense of ‘down to the roots.’ His vision for humanity, for the Church, for us, is not about stopgap solutions but about a deep and thoroughgoing transformation of our beliefs, ideals, and actions.

There are few places in the Gospels where this is more evident than in Luke’s Sermon on the Plain (Luke’s version of Matthew’s more famous Sermon on the Mount), which our Sunday lectionary started last week and continues today, with these challenging words:

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.

This ethic runs pretty much opposite to every human instinct. We recite the Golden Rule — Do unto others as you would have them do unto you — often enough, but here in context it seems more difficult, because what it’s really saying is “Do unto others not as they have done and are doing unto you.” Ouch. When Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” he’s not talking about abstract figures, but the literal people who hurt us. This is love completely devoid of sentimentality. But is this kind of love even possible? And if it is, is it good? The twentieth century was a golden age for nonviolent resistance. And a lot of that was driven by Christians who saw in Jesus’ teaching not a way of reinforcing power structures, but of a means of empowering the oppressed by revealing those power structures as being evil. Howard Thurman, a theologian whose writings inspired many of the leading figures of the American Civil Rights movement wrote powerfully about this: Hatred, he says, only reinforces hatred and harms the hated and hater alike. The way of love is not a sentimental retreat or a submission in the face of injustice, but a way for the oppressed to take ownership of their lives by taking the initiative over their oppressors. As Richard Rohr has written, “Just don’t get into the tit-for-tat game… Create your own loving set of rules, which will blow the system apart. You take the initiative and change the rules, the expectations and the outcome” (Jesus’ Plan for a New World). In teaching in this way, Jesus takes away the idea of reciprocity and retribution. We don’t do good because others do good to us; neither do we do bad because others do bad to us. We do good because it’s good. Full stop. But what’s interesting is that, right at the end of the passage, Jesus gives us back reciprocity in a transfigured way:

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.

As the theologian Matthew Root has suggested, here the mirror for our actions is not our neighbor, but God. God, in whose image and likeness we were made, is the one whose image our lives are to reflect. And so, we are called to mercy, to withhold judgement and condemnation, to forgive, and to be generous. And, because we do this, we will receive these as well, even if in ‘the next life’ or in a ‘spiritual way’ in this life. This remains difficult teaching. Our sense of justice and fairness demands that things balance out in this world; sadly, the reality of sin makes that unlikely, if not impossible. The most we can hope for in this world is consolation to go along with the difficulty, and to build the best, most whole and healed relationships we can, and exercise our true spiritual freedom— the freedom to set aside our natural urges for retribution and to love even our enemies.

One of my dear friends and colleagues told our group of a ministry they call the Starfish Collective. It’s based on a story of a young mother and her child who discover while walking on the beach that the retreating tide has left hundreds of starfish stranded above the waterline, where they will die in the heat and sun before the next incoming tide can cover them once more. The two of them rush from creature to creature, picking each one up and flinging it back into the sea. A curmudgeonly old man walking by scoffs, and says derisively, “You’re wasting your time. You can’t possibly make a difference here. There’s just too many of them and only two of you.” The child picks up one more starfish and tosses it into the waves. “Made a difference for that one,” she says.  “Be merciful,” Jesus told his disciples, “As your heavenly parent is merciful.”  

Service to God is, in this sense, perfect freedom because it ultimately means a transcendence of self, as one embraces a higher calling. We make our voices heard, amid uncertainty and ambiguity, and make ourselves willing to embark on a journey out of bondage to a servanthood to self alone. It is very easy to be kind to those who are nice to us – and to love those who love us. The challenge for Christians is to go further. Among Jesus’ own disciples there were strong characters and the potential for disastrous relationships. Simon the Zealot was violently opposed to Roman occupation; Matthew had made a living as a tax-collector in effect collaborating with the Romans; in the early Church at Philippi, Luke would have met a community in which a wealthy woman called Lydia met and worshipped on equal terms with dockers from the local port. Peter, as we know, struggled time and time again to understand and live out what Jesus was saying. His humanity is, in this sense, what draws me to him. And yet Jesus said he was the rock on which his church was built. I take comfort in that. Christian communities are never uniform – people hold different political views – and have strong opinions about a wide variety of issues; we belong to different social groups, and so on. And yet, week by week, we gather to worship God and, hopefully, to build up the Body of Christ in our own community and the locality in which we live. To do this, we must employ much of the teaching in today’s Gospel, cultivating qualities of compassion, forbearance and forgiveness. We must go beyond what might be expected in a club or other organization – being willing to sacrifice something of our own self-interest to create harmony. Such a community is a powerful witness to the world and will attract others to us. Yes, we may find ourselves exploited from time to time – but, as Jesus says, God is never outdone in generosity – and what we give we will receive back in even greater abundance.  “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” King quoted these very words in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail. “I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

King made the remarkable observation that the greatest enemy of justice in Birmingham at the time was not the sheriff, armed with clubs, and fire hoses, but rather the indifference of those who knew better. Believe that as long as you keep going, you will arrive. Another prophetic voice of that time, Marvin Gaye, sang about taking those first steps: ”Mother, mother There’s too many of you crying Brother, brother, brother There’s far too many of you dying. You know we’ve got to find a way…to bring some loving, here today.”Campground, in the old spiritual, is that place, dear one’s where we are all heading when we respond to the question, “And what does the LORD require of you: To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” It is that place where we are committed to justice, and compassion.

Oh, don’t you want to go,

To the Gospel feast;

That Promised Land,

Where all is peace? Oh, deep River, Lord,

I want to cross over into campground.

Amen.

Sixth Sunday after Epiphany – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect

O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Luke 6:17-26

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this sixth Sunday after Epiphany. I have been thinking about the beginning of the Gospel text for this morning…the part where Luke tells us that Jesus came down from the mountain after naming the Twelve, and stood on a “level place” with a large crowd of disciples and others waiting for him. I found myself thinking about the implications of this act…particularly since Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount” includes similar teaching but takes place on the mountaintop. Matthew’s version is also more “spiritualized.” He says, for example, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Luke’s account, on the other hand, begins with “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.” Somehow the fact that Jesus came down from the mountain to this level place seems important. He is not talking down to the crowd but is rather on a level playing field with them. There is a kind of reciprocity and availability here that I find intriguing. Perhaps this is, in part, because I don’t believe the beatitudes are about us…or that they were spoken those listening in such a way as to give them prescriptive commands about how to live. It’s so easy to hear them this way, but I think doing so misses the point. I once had a professor who constantly reminded those of us would-be pastoral therapists against giving advice. “Your clients can go out onto West End Avenue and get advice for free,” he said. “What they can’t get is the availability and wisdom and presence you bring to the relationship. It’s a relationship unlike any other.” I believe this is what Jesus is doing here, and I think it is a good practice for the priesthood of all believers, too—and that means all of us.

Because, you see, in this Gospel text Jesus is offering relationship. He is not so much offering commands for how we should live, or prescriptive advice about what we should do. We hear these words and some of us imagine Jesus to be telling us that we should go be poor, or learn to cry more, or find ways to be persecuted. I think this misses the real issue. The harder we try to make these rather distinctive sayings into some kind of prescriptive marching orders, the less sense they make. Moreover, I believe the paradoxical nature of these beatitudes is, in a sense, precisely the point. Nowhere in these sayings is there a directive of any kind—to anybody. Nowhere does Jesus use the imperative, nowhere does he give any orders or advice or requirements. The entire section is in the indicative—that is, he is showing—not ordering. He is signifying and suggesting—not telling people what to do.

This invitation to consider a different view of reality is precisely in keeping, I believe, with the symbolic act of coming down from the mountain, on an even plane with the people, and giving an indication of the kingdom of God from ground level. I am not persuaded that this passage is about making the world a better place, or how to become more prosperous, or how to earn favor with God. I believe Jesus is giving the crowd, and by extension giving us, a glimpse into the way God thinks, who God is, and what the Kingdom of God is like. If the beatitudes don’t seem to bear much likeness to reality, as we know it, so be it. They are not about the way the world really works, just as they are not about how we are to behave. The beatitudes are about imagining what matters to God. And how we respond to this knowledge is up to us—wherever we are in our lives, here and now. Jesus offers us a glimpse of the paradoxical picture of God’s values and priorities—and he does so as an alternative to our ordinary ways of viewing the world. Jesus is giving us an opportunity to see that which is often hidden to our day-to-day vision. What we do with this is up to us.

Perhaps we will find that we are encouraged in a rough spot, or cautious during a soft spot.

Perhaps we will see ourselves as one kind of person or another among these categories, even paradoxically so. That too is finally between each one of us, and God. Regardless, the promise is that the way things are is not the way things will always be. I don’t know about you, but when I imagine Jesus coming down off the mountain and being at eye-level, I find myself more open to hearing what he has to say. I am drawn to him precisely because of this gesture of availability. I feel, well, a sense of openness to the possibilities. I can imagine stretching on tiptoes to see, and straining to hear Jesus speak these words and, upon hearing them, walking away, shaking my head and laughing. I can imagine thinking to myself “Wow, now that is a new light on this business of being alive…and it will take a while for me to begin to ponder this, and perhaps to see my life in this new light.” Perhaps the laughter in my imagination is instructive. Isn’t it true that so often laughter can ease the bumps in the road, level the anxiety we may feel, and give us a new perspective on what it means to be human? As the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once said, “Laughter is the beginning of prayer, humor is the prelude to faith.”    

And perhaps the reference to light is instructive, too. After all, the theme of Epiphany is light. Yet the past few days have been mostly gray and rainy and cold. But you know what? The past two weeks, on my runs on the trails, most of which have occurred in cold rain, I have noticed flocks of bluebirds; 10-15 of these lovely creatures creating a distinctive colorful, hopeful contrast to the gray skies.

I reminded myself that bluebirds begin nesting in February, and I remembered another cold and rainy February when I had put up a new bluebird box the previous fall. Why did I do this? Who knows? Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Maybe that had something to do with it. One evening, just before dark, I was getting some firewood from the back yard, and I decided to make sure the bluebird box near the woodpile was clear of insects and debris—just in case it might seem an appealing home to some pair among the recent visitors. Slowly, carefully, I opened the front door. In an instant I saw the momentary brilliant flash of a blue wing, perched high on the new nesting material in the box. The evening light, for a moment, revealed a deep, abiding faithful and mysterious loveliness hidden inside. I slowly closed the door, secured it, and moved away, shaking my head and laughing at the paradoxical mystery of this revelation—this indication, this signifier, this intimation—of a new season of life. There, in the soft last light of an Epiphany evening, still deep in winter, the mystery of these bluebirds is the same as the question abiding in the beatitudes—if such a thing as this is possible, this turning upside down of our expectations, how might our own lives be different?

These blessings and woes are certainly strange, but could they be the doorway to a life more beautiful and fuller of wonder than our deepest dreams? This depends on the choices we make. And Luke uses his gospel to show that people can fall under the spell of the Jesus Way and choose the winding path toward participation in God’s blessed kingdom. The good Samaritan provides emergency assistance to a man who has been robbed and then generously commits funds for his longer-term recovery. Following an encounter with Jesus, a tax collector named Zacchaeus distributes his wealth to those he has cheated. An unnamed woman breaks a precious jar of ointment so that she can use its contents as a blessing for Jesus as life brings him closer to the cross.

Because you see, Jesus uses blessings to encourage and give hope to those who have every good reason to be discouraged and hopeless. Underneath these words, he is saying, You are beloved. The world may not see you that way, but I do. And I will treat you accordingly. Where is the church speaking words that communicate that kind of hope? Where is the church acting to make these blessings come true? That’s the winding path of love that leads to the most amazing views.

Jesus cared so much for those who needed care that he held nothing back as he loved them. As Luke says, “Power came out from him and healed all of them.” He must have seemed strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than their deepest dreams. His spirit of compassion for those who were impoverished and ostracized was fierce and unwavering. He was issuing an invitation to those who had the means to make life more blessed for those without such resources. Indeed, Jesus’ blessings and woes are specific and daunting. They can make us reconsider how we have ordered and understood our world—and how to amplify compassion and generosity. That would be the first step along the winding road that leads to a world full of compassion. Do we believe this? Are we foolish for doing so? Is it possible that these beatitudes offer us what the poet Robert Frost called “something more of the depths,” … something, that is, beyond our own self-preoccupation? I believe this is a step toward wholeness, rather than cure. Curing means getting rid of the disease, while healing— “salve”,  means becoming whole. We do far better to imagine that we have parts of ourselves more like Mary, or the prodigal, or Paul with his thorn, or Peter, who so faithfully struggled to be whole despite his limitations—limitations I share with him, rather than imagining ourselves to have all the answers. We all need grace, and the more deeply we understand this, the closer we move to wholeness. That is why Jesus “ate with sinners” and why he came down to level ground, and why the people felt so comfortable around Him. Robert Frost wrote:

Jesus is offering us in the beatitudes a glimpse into the heart of God— “something more of the depths” as Frost put it. What we do with this glimpse—this light into the kingdom of God, is, finally, up to us. Amen.

5th Sunday after Epiphany – Year C – Bill Harkins

Collect

Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Luke 5:1-11

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning and welcome to Holy Family on this Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany! We are so glad you have joined us this morning. The Gospel for today is evocative on many levels, not the least of which is the remarkable, and I dare say evangelical conversion of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, notable in part for the utter loss by Zebedee of the labor force of his solid small fishing business…but that is a sermon on a different kind of faith for another day, perhaps. Suffice it to say that I have always worried about old Zebedee and admired the resilience with which he carried on. I’m not sure I would have fared well under those circumstances. This passage is also noteworthy in its lovely evocation of Isaiah, and the passage we heard just a few weeks ago– The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. Now, in Epiphany, we see the Incarnational embodiment of those prophetic words and today it takes the form of Jesus casting his nets—fishing for people—on the shores of Galilee. With gratitude, I recall today with affection the novelist Walker Percy, whom I met while I was a student at Rhodes College, and whose writings had, in some ways, the effect of converting a young neuroscience major into the priest standing before you all this morning. And I am reminded of the holy and haunting lines from the poem of his relative, William Alexander Percy, written in 1924, and now published as Hymn 661 in our hymnal:

They cast their nets in Galilee

Just off the hills of brown

Such happy simple fisherfolk

Before the Lord came down

Contented peaceful fishermen

Before they ever knew

The peace of God That fill’d their hearts 

Brimful and broke them too

It is the fourth stanza of William Alexander Percy’s moving poem that captures the Christian gospel task: “The peace of God, it is no peace,/ But strife closed in the sod,/ Yet, let us pray for but one thing– / The marvelous peace of God.” Our gospel lesson recounts for us the calling of four fishermen into the fold of the disciples of Jesus: Andrew and Simon Peter, and James and John. They became, probably, the closest followers and friends of Jesus. But they were ordinary people, rural people. They were simple fisher folk. Though we tend to think of “fishing,” these days as a peaceful and leisurely endeavor, true fishermen know it is hard work. Those who make a living from fishing know that their livelihood depends upon random weather, equipment repaired repeatedly, and the vagaries of where fish might be on a given day. In some ways we can identify with this uncertainty, as we all know that much is left to chance in our lives no matter how much control we believe we may have. Fishermen are, therefore, in some ways like all of us. The first followers of Jesus were regular people, making a regular living, praying for the peace of God. That peace was often mixed with strife, but it was worth it… people just like you and me, people who work for peace even when some days are so hard… like “strife sown in the sod” to use Percy’s image. We get it…and yet, when we come together in Christ, something happens as Percy says, the “marvelous peace of God,” the peace that passes all understanding. So perhaps we might cast our prophetic nets ahead a bit, use our imaginations, and evoke a day yet to come, though those called to follow Jesus on the shore that day could not foresee it. What will the Incarnational work begun on the shore of Galilee this day bring about? If we imagine that we, too, are called to put down our nets, however we understand this, what now?

In the past several weeks I have spoken with many people in our parish, and for that matter in my clinical practice, and in grocery store aisles and countless other contexts about the political tensions in our country. Some have wanted me to preach in support of our president—for whom we pray and will continue to pray—and others have expressed deep concerns about the current administration and even wondered if Holy Family is a safe place for them to worship. Like many, our own family has been impacted by recent events, as our brilliant daughter-in-law, a gifted epidemiologist with the CDC, like thousands of employees from the VA to the CDC and beyond, was among those receiving the resignation offer letter, which has created mass confusion. And our son, an oncology fellow at MD Anderson, has been working on a lymphoma grant for NIH now put on hold. Many have been impacted and have had their lives turned upside down including aid organizations in our own denomination and that of our sister denomination, the Lutheran Church. Like each of you, regardless of how you voted, I have strong feelings about these matters. But hear this, I will always preach the Gospel, which calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves, welcome the stranger, show compassion to the suffering, and respect the dignity of every human being. And I will never tell you or anyone else how to vote, a sacred right ultimately based on your core values, and how those values are lived out in the world. As today’s Gospel suggests we are called to put down our nets and follow Jesus. How we interpret this is ultimately a matter between ourselves and God. Maybe our “nets” metaphorically speaking, are either/or, all or nothing ways of thinking and being in the world, and we may be called to let this go. Nevertheless, I will never tell you, or anyone else, how to vote.

And we have been here before in our church, many times. Indeed, some 25 years ago, I was a Postulant here at Holy Family. Let me tell you about a chapter in our own history during a time we were threatened with division, an experience later published in an academic journal. That summer, after a two-week vacation in Wyoming with our large extended family. The trip was primarily in honor of the 50th wedding anniversary of my parents-in-law, and 15 of us spent a week in Dubois, Wyoming, just south and east of the Tetons and Yellowstone Park. This is an area of distant views, stunningly beautiful and remarkably varied geological terrain, and weather that can change in an instant. Yes, Yellowstone was a fascinating, exotic experience for this native Georgian, and the park and its environs struck me as a wonderland of flora and fauna with which I was largely unaccustomed. Adding to my sense of mystery in this remarkable area is the fact that much of it is contained in a vast, ancient volcanic caldera. Geologists tell us that it is one of several geologic “hotspots” around the world—areas, that is, suggestive of high thermal energy beneath the surface. Old Faithful, the area of Mammoth Hot Springs, and many other areas in and around Yellowstone are “outward and visible signs” of this reality. All of this occurred, of course, in the context of our family gathering, and the joys and tensions of a family of 15 spending a week together in close quarters. Despite the inevitable moments of difficulty that come with life in families, we did just fine, and the trip was a joy and an adventure. Oddly, one moment stands out for me, and I have thought of it often considering the events of the past several weeks in our country, and in the diverse family that is our Episcopal Church. Driving east on I-80 out of Salt Lake City into Wyoming, we eventually turned left at Rock Springs and began to climb toward Lander and the Wind River Range. Driving north in this dramatic, high desert country, we passed a sign that read “Continental Divide–7, 600 Feet.” Upon seeing the sign, one of my nephews removed his Walkman from its normal, fixed position and asked from the back of the van, “Uncle Bill, what does ‘Continental Divide’ mean?” With utter certainty and absolute authority, I said: “Kevin, it means that all the water—snow or rain, that falls on the east side flows into the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico, and all the water that falls on the west side eventually flows into the Pacific Ocean.” “Wow,” Kevin said. “That’s pretty cool. You know a lot of neat stuff, Uncle Bill.” And he then restored his Walkman to its rightful place and went back to reading his book.

For a few moments of self-congratulatory bliss, I drove on in complete agreement with my young nephew…such a bright and perceptive lad. “Yes,” I thought to myself, “I am a veritable storehouse of esoteric but essential information about the nature of things, just waiting to expostulate with clarity and certainty bestowing upon worthy recipients the fruits of my knowledge. Yes, that’s me…Uncle Bill, font of wisdom and truth.”

And yet…I began to look around, to really see the land through which we sojourners were passing. This high desert country was stunningly beautiful, with the majestic, snow-capped Wind River Range piling up ahead of us to the north and west. But the landscape where we were at that moment was rolling hills, with vast open spaces of relatively flat terrain, as if it had been scooped out of the earth by giant hands. Truth told, as I thought about it, I could not really tell in which direction rain falling over this area might eventually flow—which way the melting snows of winter would travel in the warm spring sun. I found this, well, unsettling.

I began to feel not so very wise. The old Rhodes College neuroscience major in me began to develop alternative hypotheses, testing each one in my mind as we drove northward. But there was no getting around it. Falling rain in this region might end up almost anywhere. The term “Continental Divide” either meant what it said, in the way I had explained it to my nephew, or it meant nothing at all, and should be dispensed with. Heaven help me, I even began to feel a little anxious. “If this term—that sign back there, doesn’t really mean exactly what it says, what does?”

Even as I said this to my former science-oriented self, however, I knew better. I knew, moreover, that this either/or, all-or-nothing binary way of thinking was not really my style. I knew there were some places in the Rockies where one could indeed literally stand astride the Continental Divide in a steady rain and watch the water flow toward either side, fully confident of its destination. Other places, like the Great Divide Basin, were more, well, ambiguous—there was “greyer” in the definition; there was need for more discernment.

John McPhee, the remarkable writer who has made geology—and many other topics—come alive for lay folk like me, wrote the following about the very spot through which we were now driving:

“Dark mountains spread low across the horizon, might have been a storm coming—and in a sense they were, or had been. They were the Over-thrust belt, cumulate from the west. Looking north to the even more distant Gros Ventre and Wind Rivers, and south to the Uintas, were encompassing in a wide glance about sixteen thousand square miles of land, much of it so dry, stacked flat like crumbling hardtack, that only a geologist could absorb such a scene and see in it a lake that would rank seventh in the world….So level is the land there that the term “Continental Divide” is somewhat moot. Cartographers seem to have difficulty determining where it is. Its location will vary from map to map. Moreover, it frays, separates, and, like an eye in old rope, surrounds a couple of million acres that do not drain either to the Atlantic or the Pacific—adding ambiguity to the word “divide.”

As I thought about this later, I came to see the terrain in a new way. I could see that, rather than rendering the term “continental divide” meaningless, somehow, by virtue of it’s sharing an ancient, complex story, a previous life as an Eocene Lake of tremendous proportions—it seemed to enlarge, deepen, and enrich the term for me. I could take the long view of the geologist and within it, engage this term with imagination, depth and dimension in time and space.

I thought a great deal about our complex church family and the ostensible “continental divide” issues down through the years that have threatened to separate us: creedal debates; the Civil War, and especially the issue of slavery; the Introduction of the new Book of Common Prayer, and saying goodbye to the 1928 Prayer Book; issues of Civil Rights; the intense debates over the ordination of women and same sex marriage; and the ratification and consecration of Bishop Elect Gene Robinson of New Hampshire and related discussions about human sexuality. Most recently, the homily given by Bishop Mary Ann Budde has led many to the Episcopal Church and caused others to threaten to leave. Each of these has seemed to be, in its time, the “continental divide” that would split the church by means of either/or, all or nothing thinking about how—and if—we come together at table, and who presides there. Each has threatened to give us reason to make choices primarily out of fear—a fear that God’s love will not be enough to overcome the ambiguous divides that threaten to separate us. It cannot. It must not. And let us remember, my brothers and sisters, that making decisions informed primarily by an ethos of fear—amidst what Walter Brueggemann calls a “myth of scarcity,” is almost always dangerous, because such decisions make us more vulnerable to this “all or nothing” thinking.13 Rather, perhaps this terrain we have traversed in our Episcopal Church over those two weeks of General Convention was more like the Continental Divide in the Great Basin of Wyoming. Perhaps in this liminal, transitional place called church, the winds of the Holy Spirit blow and have space to creatively engage us. Perhaps there are times in the life of our church, just as is sometimes true in our personal sojourns, when “not knowing” with utter certainty can be a blessing. Perhaps during this interim season of our lives—we can trust that the Spirit is indeed working among us.  

It is not always easy to see beneath the literal to the metaphorical and symbolic, especially when our basic needs and fears often determine what we see, and how. Jesus knows we are hungry on many levels, and we are often scared, and wilderness can take so many forms. The psychologist Carl Jung, deeply interested in religion, once said: “I have seen people remain unhappy when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, reputation, outward success, money, and remain unhappy even when they attain what they have been seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon.”

Peter, Andrew, James, and John would come to learn this and to bear it out in ways they could not imagine…the peace of God that passes all understanding and, as William Alexander Percy said so well, the marvelous peace of God. Like each of the disciples in their own way, who left their nets to become the Body of Christ in the world, Jesus is to be broken, blessed, and shared. He gives himself away, each moment. Like the Eucharist we celebrate, Jesus is more than a provider of physical sustenance. In Wyoming, I said “Pay attention; see, and you will believe.” Conversely, Jesus says to us, “Seeing is not always the same as believing; sometimes you have to believe, in order to really see.” Both are correct. And both point to a similar truth: the only way to have a full life, and keep it, is to give it away. Jesus embodied this in his life, in which we are invited to be creatively compassionate, in gratitude. “Every day,” Wendell Berry says, “you have less reason not to give yourself away.” Jesus said, “I am the Bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry. Take up your nets, and follow me.” Amen.As I thought about this later, I came to see the terrain in a new way. I could see that, rather than rendering the term “continental divide” meaningless, somehow, by virtue of it’s sharing an ancient, complex story, a previous life as an Eocene Lake of tremendous proportions—it seemed to enlarge, deepen, and enrich the term for me. I could take the long view of the geologist and within it, engage this term with imagination, depth and dimension in time and space.

I thought a great deal about our complex church family and the ostensible “continental divide” issues down through the years that have threatened to separate us: creedal debates; the Civil War, and especially the issue of slavery; the Introduction of the new Book of Common Prayer, and saying goodbye to the 1928 Prayer Book; issues of Civil Rights; the intense debates over the ordination of women and same sex marriage; and the ratification and consecration of Bishop Elect Gene Robinson of New Hampshire and related discussions about human sexuality. Most recently, the homily given by Bishop Mary Ann Budde has led many to the Episcopal Church and caused others to threaten to leave. Each of these has seemed to be, in its time, the “continental divide” that would split the church by means of either/or, all or nothing thinking about how—and if—we come together at table, and who presides there. Each has threatened to give us reason to make choices primarily out of fear—a fear that God’s love will not be enough to overcome the ambiguous divides that threaten to separate us. It cannot. It must not. And let us remember, my brothers and sisters, that making decisions informed primarily by an ethos of fear—amidst what Walter Brueggemann calls a “myth of scarcity,” is almost always dangerous, because such decisions make us more vulnerable to this “all or nothing” thinking.13 Rather, perhaps this terrain we have traversed in our Episcopal Church over those two weeks of General Convention was more like the Continental Divide in the Great Basin of Wyoming. Perhaps in this liminal, transitional place called church, the winds of the Holy Spirit blow and have space to creatively engage us. Perhaps there are times in the life of our church, just as is sometimes true in our personal sojourns, when “not knowing” with utter certainty can be a blessing. Perhaps during this interim season of our lives—we can trust that the Spirit is indeed working among us.  

It is not always easy to see beneath the literal to the metaphorical and symbolic, especially when our basic needs and fears often determine what we see, and how. Jesus knows we are hungry on many levels, and we are often scared, and wilderness can take so many forms. The psychologist Carl Jung, deeply interested in religion, once said: “I have seen people remain unhappy when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, reputation, outward success, money, and remain unhappy even when they attain what they have been seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon.”

Peter, Andrew, James, and John would come to learn this and to bear it out in ways they could not imagine…the peace of God that passes all understanding and, as William Alexander Percy said so well, the marvelous peace of God. Like each of the disciples in their own way, who left their nets to become the Body of Christ in the world, Jesus is to be broken, blessed, and shared. He gives himself away, each moment. Like the Eucharist we celebrate, Jesus is more than a provider of physical sustenance. In Wyoming, I said “Pay attention; see, and you will believe.” Conversely, Jesus says to us, “Seeing is not always the same as believing; sometimes you have to believe, in order to really see.” Both are correct. And both point to a similar truth: the only way to have a full life, and keep it, is to give it away. Jesus embodied this in his life, in which we are invited to be creatively compassionate, in gratitude. “Every day,” Wendell Berry says, “you have less reason not to give yourself away.” Jesus said, “I am the Bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry. Take up your nets, and follow me.” Amen.