St. John's Episcopal Church

Sermon for Sunday, November 29, 2009 (Year C, Advent 1)

Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. (Luke 21:28)

What is it that makes us human?  Some anthropologists say that our race became distinctively human when we began burying our dead.  Animals leave their dead on the forest floor.  When we humans began to bury our dead, usually with some ceremony, we are said to have crossed that line from animal to human.

Food historians might say that we became human when we began cooking our food.  I suppose that the ancient grandmother of the Barefoot Contessa accidentally knocked her caveman mate’s kill into the fire and liked the result.

However, I’m inclined to believe that what makes us distinctively human is storytelling.  We are, as one author put it, “storytelling animals.”  As I have said before, storytelling is intimately related to the way we humans think.   It is primarily through story that we humans achieve identity, store memory, and create meaning in our world.  To understand how important narrative is, consider a person with severe amnesia.  This person cannot remember who he is, the shape of his past, or what he means to himself and others.  And because we use past experience to anticipate what may happen in the future, a person with severe amnesia has no future either.  He is without a story and, in the most profound sense, lost.

Storytelling was probably the earliest form of entertainment.  It’s likely that our early ancestors spent their evenings around the fire telling stories — primarily, I expect, about food and family, the two most significant elements in their lives.  They undoubtedly found these narratives enjoyable, and so they kept on telling stories, repeating the same narratives again and again.  The stories people heard as children became the stories they told as adults and in turn passed along to their children.  In is in this manner that we humans, across many generations, have established our identity, stored our memories, and grappled with the age-old question of what it all means — and we have done so because it was both essential and enjoyable.

That, in essence, is how our Bible came to be.  The stories of the Old Testament are the memories which established the identity and meaning of the Hebrew people.  These stories were handed down in an oral tradition stretching across scores of generations.  In due course these tales were written down, arranged, edited, and became Holy Scripture.  The stories of Jesus likewise originated in an oral tradition, but one that was fairly quickly committed to writing.  For Christians these stories constitute our corporate memory and establish our identity and meaning.  Without these stories we Christians could not know who we are and what we mean.

I mention this because the First Sunday of Advent is the day when we Christians start a new liturgical year, a new year in the cycle of our worship.  Advent is a season of preparation for the coming of our King, both at Bethlehem as the Christ Child, and at the end of the age as the Son of Man.  We celebrate this season, and all the seasons which follow, by telling the story of our Lord — his birth, his baptism, his ministry of teaching and healing, his death and resurrection — and we also re-tell stories of the founding of the Church and how early Christians lived out their faith.  We do this year after year, repeating and reflecting upon the same stories again and again, because doing so is instructive and enjoyable.  And we pass these stories along to our children, along with the habit of telling them, so that they, too, will know who they are and what they mean.

The part of the Jesus story we have today actually comes at the end of our Lord’s public ministry — from Luke’s account of his final week of earthly life.  Jesus has entered Jerusalem in triumph, hailed as the King who comes in the Name of the Lord.  He has cleansed the temple, declaring that the authorities have turned it into a den of robbers.  Now he is teaching by day in the temple and spending his nights on the Mount of Olives outside the Holy City.  The Jewish authorities are determined to be rid of Jesus, but are reluctant to act because the people are “spellbound by what they heard” Jesus teaching. (Luke 19:47)  The chief priests and scribes demand to know by what authority he presumes to teach within the sacred precincts, and in response Jesus tells the parable of the wicked tenants who refuse to give the vineyard owner the produce he is due — making it clear that the authorities themselves are the wicked tenants.  The Sadducees try to trap Jesus with a question about the resurrection, which they don’t believe in anyway. (Luke 20:2, 27-33)  Jesus answers so well that his opponents back off.  However, Jesus has made powerful enemies, and it is only a matter of time until they find a way to deal with him.

In the passage immediately preceding today’s gospel, Jesus predicts the destruction of Jerusalem.  In doing so our Lord claims no divine insight into the future.  The lesson of the fig tree makes this clear.  Jesus says that if you see the fig tree beginning to leaf out, you know that summer is near.  (Luke 21:29-30)  In much the same way Jesus observes the political situation in Jerusalem and Judea, and he recognizes the growing frustration and anger people feel toward Rome.  A major uprising is inevitable; indeed it comes only about 30 years after the resurrection.  And so, drawing on imagery from the major prophets, Jesus speaks of Jerusalem under siege, of people fleeing to the mountains, of the Holy City laid waste, and Judea’s population once again led off into exile.

Then Jesus launches into a description of the end times.  He declares, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and…distress among nations… for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.  Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.” (Luke 21:25-27)  It is an unsettling vision — and certainly not the sort of thing we associate with Christmas!  I’ve looked in several stores, but I have yet to find a Christmas card showing the Son of Man descending through the clouds, surrounded by winged lions and fiery serpents, with the heavenly bodies doing strange things in the background — and the message “Seasons Greetings!” printed on the inside of the card.

So why this focus on the end times as we begin Advent?  Why begin the annual retelling of our Christian story with the story’s last chapter?  In part, it is because (as I said a moment ago) this is a season of two-fold expectation — the time when we look for Jesus to come at Bethlehem, his first coming, and at the end of the age, his second coming.  But I think it has to do also with what Jesus counsels his listeners to do when the end times arrive.  “Now when these things begin to take place,” he says, “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”  Stand up, and look up!  Lots of people tell us that the end of the present age will be a moment fraught with terror.  But Jesus says we should stand up, raise our heads, and see our redemption — God’s kingdom — coming down out of heaven.  Just as our redemption drew near at Bethlehem, when God in love took flesh and dwelt among us, so again will our redemption draw near as God in love brings to completion his plan of salvation.

Jesus urges his disciples (and us) to prepare for our redemption.  We are not to idle away our time “with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life,” (Luke 21:34) but rather to be “on guard” and to “be alert” for God’s sudden intervention.  (Luke 21: 34, 36)  We are not to live in fear and foreboding, or in denial, but to look forward in hope.  It is to encourage our preparation that Jesus describes the end times.  As one commentator puts it, “The real purpose of speaking about the last days is to affect the present ones.” (Gerry Pierse, in Sundays into Silence, 1998.)  In other words, Jesus is telling us that we must treat today as an opportunity to be awake, look reality in the eye, and act accordingly.

How might we do this?  Well, consider what it means to be a communicant of this parish.  Under our Episcopal canon law, a communicant in good standing is a parishioner who gives, works, and prays for the spread of the kingdom of God.  By give, we mean sharing with the Church and with others the material blessings God has entrusted to our care.  By work, we mean sharing with the Church and with others the skills, talents and interests with which God has endowed us.  And by pray, we mean engaging in regular conversation with God about our own needs and the needs of others, asking always what accords with God’s will, and taking the time and effort to listen for God’s response.  If we are faithful in giving, working, and praying, then the kingdom will indeed come near, and we will be well prepared for whatever that event may bring.

Today we mark the start of a new year, and we begin another cycle of telling the Christian story.  During this brief season of Advent, let us stand up, raise our heads, and look with joy for the coming of our Lord.  Let us share our story with one another, and with our children, for it is in telling and re-telling this remarkable narrative that we Christians pass along our memories, discover anew who we are, and discern more clearly what we mean in this world.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year C, Advent 1: Lesson — Jeremiah 33:14-16  |  Gradual — Psalm 25:1-9  |  Epistle — 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13  |  Gospel — Luke 21:25-36

Collect for Advent 1:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Sermon for Wednesday, November 25, 2009, Thanksgiving Eve

[S]trive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matt. 6:25-33)

Years ago a wise man told me that Christians, along with many non-Christian and non-religious people, have two besetting sins.  The first is worrying about the past.  Some incident which happened months or years or even decades ago — something said or left unsaid, something done or left undone — bubbles to the surface, and suddenly we are off on a merry-go-round of regrets, recriminations, excuses, and endless if-onlys.  Psychologists call this perseveration, the prolonging of a thought or action long after the stimulus that prompted it has ceased.

We engage in this kind of behavior, we perseverate, because deep down inside we want to change the past.  We hunger to fix whatever is broken.  So we drag this situation back into focus again and again, and persevere in our efforts to make it right.

And, in fact, sometimes we can make it right.  People in recovery call this “making amends,” taking an action which makes better some situation or relationship which has gone awry.  Making amends is a key element in Twelve Step spirituality, something people in recovery are admonished to do unless the effort itself will simply make the situation worse.

Of course, in this life, the unexpected is always a factor.  One of my AA friends said that a few weeks after she got sober, she discovered a library book she had checked out years earlier but neglected to return.  As part of her effort to clean up the mess she had made while drinking, my friend sent the book back to the library with a note explaining that, as a recovering alcoholic, she was making amends by returning the library’s property.  By return mail she received a curt thank-you and a bill for more than $500 in unpaid library fines.  My friend said she later found another overdue library book, which she also sent back, but this time without giving her last name or return address.

The problem, of course, is that more often than not, the past just isn’t fixable.  That situation which troubles us is beyond change; or that relationship has ceased; or that other person may even be dead.  In this case worry gets us nowhere.  Difficult as it may be, we must let the past be the past.

Just as the past is mostly beyond fixing, so the future is mostly beyond arranging.  This is the second besetting sin of Christians — worrying about the future.  We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, so we try to arrange things to our advantage.  I think this is what Jesus was talking about in the section of the Sermon on the Mount that we have as tonight’s gospel reading.  The Sermon is a wide-ranging block of material.  Jesus rehearses the beatitudes; declares that he has come to fulfill the law and prophets;  issues warnings about anger, adultery, and divorce; and urges his listeners to love their enemies, to give alms without fanfare, and to store up treasure in heaven.  He also gives them that prayer which will soon become the common devotion of all Christians. (Matt. 5:1—6:24)

I can imagine that by this time his listeners’ heads are spinning like tops!  If Jesus is setting forth a job description for a person of faith, his listeners — ourselves included — have run out of fingers on which to keep all this straight.  It is at this point that Jesus launches into his discussion of worry.  “I tell you,” Jesus says, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.” (Matt. 6:25)

Don’t worry?  To his original audience, this must have sounded absolutely bizarre.  This group would have been “the people of the land,” those who ate their bread by the sweat of their faces (Gen. 3:19), people who eked our a marginal living from a small plot of land and a few sheep, or hauled up their living with a fishing net, or earned their daily bread by practicing a trade.  These people spent their entire lives on the edge of disaster.  And now Jesus declares that God will provide for them as bountifully as he does for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.  (Matt. 6:26-29)  “Hogwash!” many must have said as they went home to a meager dinner followed by another day of toil.

And I suspect that many of us say, “Hogwash!” too — not loudly, of course, perhaps not even consciously, but we say it nonetheless.  We ask: What does this mean, at a practical level?  Give up my job (assuming I have a job)?  Cash in my insurance policy?  Let the mortgage go unpaid (if I can still make the mortgage payments)?  Forget about my IRA (assuming there’s anything left of it)?  Expect that God will put food on my table and clothing on my children’s backs?  Expect that God will pay my skyrocketing health insurance premiums?  Is Jesus woolgathering?!  Is he just putting us on?

No, our Lord is not counseling irresponsibility or sloth, nor is he extolling the life of the beggar.  I think it’s unfortunate that those who designed our lectionary clipped off the last verse of this section, where Jesus says, “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.  Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matt. 6:34)  This helps us see that for Jesus the issue is not food, clothing, and shelter.  He is quite clear that “…your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” (Matt. 6:32)  God knows, too, how much hard work is required just to get from today to tomorrow.  Rather, what our Lord urges is that we not worry about tomorrow.

Now, having listened to me preach for eighteen months, you will know that I have a fondness for the etymology of words — where our English words come from.  Our word worry comes from wurgen, Old High German meaning to strangle.  In our customary use of the word, worry means to be anxious, to allow one’s mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles.  Everyone has a few worries, of course, so why worry about… being worried?  But the kind of worry Jesus is addressing here is more than minor fretting.  When we sink into serious worry about what the future will bring, we as much as “strangle” the issue, the person, or the situation which is the focus of our anxiety, as the archaic German term suggests.  Or think of a dog which has caught some prey animal.  It will worry the carcass — shake it and pull on it with its teeth — and in the process reduce it to bits and pieces.  That’s the kind of worry Jesus is concerned with here — not prudent preparation for the future, but worry which is obsessive and destructive.

Why is worry destructive?  Well, obviously, we can worry ourselves into the hospital, or an early grave.  But Jesus is looking at the spiritual impact.  He is counseling his listeners (us included) against the kind of materialism that worry about the future makes so attractive.  We usually think of materialism — placing highest value on material well-being — as the spiritual affliction of those endowed with an abundance of material goods, those people someone once described as “the ‘haves’ and the ‘have mores.’”  But materialism may also infect those who have only a little, or who feel that the little they have is threatened.  A person can become just as obsessed over a stock portfolio of $50,000 as over a stock portfolio of $5,000,000.  Like the flu, materialism is a disease anyone can get.

Thus what Jesus urges upon his original audience (and upon us) is the recognition that every day has its own set of worries, its own distinct troubles.  When we become obsessed with the problems of tomorrow, we neglect the problems of today.  “Today’s trouble is enough for today,” our Lord says. (Matt. 6:34)  Today’s trouble is all we can handle, and if we fail to handle it well, we simply make tomorrow all the more difficult.  As people in recovery are fond of reminding each other, “One day at a time!”  In saying this, they simply paraphrase Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

As we begin our celebration of Thanksgiving, I hope that we will take a few moments — perhaps as we prepare to receive Holy Communion — to reflect on the crucial importance of today.  The past is largely fixed, immutable, and beyond our ability to make over.  The future, with all its unknowns, deserves prudent preparation, but not the obsessive anxiety which poisons us spiritually.

What we have, really, is just today — just a few hours in which to tell one’s spouse or child or friend how much you love them; a few hours in which to share with loved ones and strangers the great blessings, both material and spiritual, which our God has showered upon us; a few hours in which to turn aside from failure and make a new start; a few hours in which to oppose evil with justice, and oppression with compassion; a few hours in which to respect the dignity of every human being; a few hours in which to be the eyes and ears and hands and feet and voice of the Master.

It is today, these few hours, when we are called to be God’s people in this world.  Let us give thanks for today and what we may do with that great gift.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Thanksgiving Day, Year B: Lesson — Joel 2:21-27  |  Gradual — Psalm 126  |  Epistle — 1 Timothy 2:1-7  |  Gospel — Matthew 6:25-33

Collect for Thanksgiving Day:

Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them: Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, November 22, 2009 (Year B, Proper 29 — Christ the King)

Pilate entered the headquarters… summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” (John 18:33)

Today’s gospel reading comes from St. John’s account of Good Friday.  The Jewish authorities have turned Jesus over to Pilate, Procurator of the Roman Province of Judea — although an inscription discovered in 1961 indicates that his title was Prefect.  Be it Prefect or Procurator, Pilate was the local representative of Roman rule in the Holy Land.  His duties were primarily military and financial.  From his headquarters at the seacoast town of Caesarea, Pilate commanded a small garrison of about 3,000 soldiers, mostly raised from the local population.  With this force he was expected to keep order.  The need to maintain law and order made it necessary for Pilate to be on hand in Jerusalem, together with a contingent of his troops, during the annual Passover festival.  Anti-Roman disturbances during Passover were common.  Pilate was also responsible for collecting the imperial taxes, usually through hired tax collectors, but always with the potential for military coercion looming in the background.

Roman Procurators also had limited judicial functions, which explains why the Sanhedrin, the local Jewish council, brought Jesus to Pilate.  The Jewish authorities had already questioned Jesus and found his answers blasphemous.  But blasphemy against the Jewish God was not a capital offense under Roman law.  Thus, when the Sanhedrin took Jesus to Pilate, they needed a pretext.  Although St. John does not record a specific charge, the Jewish authorities evidently accused Jesus of sedition, specifically, that he had interfered with payment of Roman taxes and that he had called himself “king.”  Sedition was a capital offense.

An accusation having been made, Pilate has little choice but to try the offender.  However, Pilate does not seem to consider this Galilean rabbi a real criminal.  Rather, Pilate sees that he has been sucked into an internal Jewish theological dispute which, as a Roman official, would normally be no concern of his.  That is the most reasonable explanation for Pilate’s sarcasm as he interrogates our Lord.

We have just a fragment of the exchange between Jesus and Pilate, but it is instructive.  As John reports, Pilate talks about one thing, while Jesus talks about something entirely different.  Pilate wants to know if Jesus has offended against Rome.  Jesus, aware that the end is near, talks of things that Pilate, this minor Roman functionary, could hardly grasp.

“Are you the King of the Jews?” Pilate asks. (John 18:33)  This is their first exchange.  Note that Rome maintained its control by deciding who would be a client king in this place or that.  The Procurator therefore wants to know if Jesus has set himself up as a petty king in opposition to Rome.  Jesus evades the question, and shifts the focus to Pilate himself: “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” (v. 34)  He is asking Pilate if he himself is a believer!

Pilate is offended.  “Am I a Jew?” he demands. (v. 35)  “What have you done?”  This is their second exchange.  Pilate asks Jesus to confess, to self-incriminate.  At this point Jesus leaves Pilate in the dust and begins to speak of spiritual matters.  “My kingdom is not of this world,” he says.  If Jesus was an earthly king, then his followers would be in the streets, fighting to save his life.  “But as it is,” our Lord declares, “my kingdom is not from here.” (v. 36)  Not from the Jewish authorities… not from Rome… not from any human or earthly power.  Jesus’ kingdom is from somewhere, and some One, else.

But Pilate, like a dog with a bone, won’t give up.  In their third exchange Pilate says, “So you are a king?” (v. 37)  That’s what you say, Jesus responds.  “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” (v. 37)  For some reason, the reading ends at this point, clipping off Pilate’s sneering, deeply ironic rejoinder: “What is truth?” (v. 38)  Jesus is all about the truth.  Pilate, the jaded bureaucrat, cares nothing for the truth.  They have been speaking at cross-purposes.

Or perhaps it would be closer to reality to say that Jesus has been talking to a person who is stone deaf.  For Pilate, this Jesus is a backcountry religious enthusiast who, for reasons he never discerns, has offended his betters — people who now want Jesus swept out with the trash.  From Pilate’s perspective, with all his fine talk about kingship and truth, Jesus just plays into his enemies’ hands.

When reading the Bible, and especially the narratives about Jesus in the gospels, I often find it helpful to put myself into the story.  Sometimes I imagine myself an unseen observer, like the proverbial fly on the wall.  Sometimes I assume the role of a disciple listening to Jesus teach or watching him heal some poor soul.  And sometimes I make myself a player in the drama.  It’s interesting what you see when you look with a different pair of eyes.

For this morning’s purposes let us assume that we ourselves personally witness this interrogation of Jesus by Pilate.  Say, for instance, that we are among the Roman soldiers guarding the prisoner, standing just a couple steps away from the Procurator and the accused rabbi.  What do we see?

Well, to start with, Pilate cuts an imposing figure in his finely woven woolen tunic with the two purple stripes indicating that he is of the equestrian order.  Jesus, on the other hand, is in bad shape.  He has been bound with ropes since his arrest several hours earlier, and the police roughed him up during his trial by the Sanhedrin.  If appearances count, we guards will see Jesus a sad case indeed.

We guards will also be aware of the sharp difference in power between Jesus and Pilate.  Pilate carries with him all the authority of Rome, the greatest empire since Alexander the Great, and of Rome’s emperor, who rules (so the priests say) by divine right and who will himself become divine upon his death.  By comparison, this Galilean holy man is a powerless nobody — abandoned by his closest friends, condemned by the chief priests, and now in Pilate’s power to be released or crucified, as Pilate might on a whim decide.  Who is this Jesus that he presumes to speak to Pilate about kingship and truth?

In other words, standing there just a few feet from Pilate and his prisoner, we guards will not be impressed with Jesus.  In a world where social and political position, power, and money count — especially to 1st century Roman bureaucrats like Pilate — this strange talk about spiritual kingdoms and truth marks Jesus as contemptible, perhaps even a bit mad.

For that matter, I think it’s fair to say that for many people in our own day — for whom social and political position, power, and money are just as important as they were in the 1st century — will find this Jesus equally unattractive.  It takes sensitivity, I think, for us to look beyond the scruffy exterior Jesus presents in this scene from John’s gospel, and to understand what Jesus is really talking about.

Our Lord is telling Pilate — and he is telling us — that something quite amazing is taking shape around us, and if we are open to it, in us — a new age of divine rule by a King who is not of this world and its values, but of God and God’s values.  In this new kingdom everything will be turned upside down.  As our Lord’s own mother said, those who now are shoved aside will then be exalted, and those who now do the shoving will then be sent packing.  Power and prestige and wealth will be as nothing.  Compassion and loving service will be everything.

“What have you done?” Pilate demands to know.  What Jesus has done, in fact, is to turn the world upside down.  That is the truth to which Jesus came to testify, and that is the truth which will be enshrined in his kingdom, which is coming in the future, and yet is already a living reality for those who believe.

What Pilate asks of Jesus is a question each of us might well ask ourselves.  What have we done?  What are we doing to turn our world upside down?  What kingdom work are we about?

For example, last Friday the U.S. Senate passed a bill which would provide assistance to caregivers for seriously wounded veterans.  The House of Representatives will shortly take up similar legislation.  With the media now focused so exclusively on health insurance reform, it is easy to forget that there are other important needs out there, including those of veterans who have been sent off to war, only to return home with serious physical and psychological wounds.  Their spouses and families become these veterans’ primary sources of support, sometimes for years, sometimes for the rest of a veteran’s life.  Those of you who have served as primary caregiver for a sick child or elderly parent will understand how demanding this role is.  Being a primary caregiver can involve great sacrifice, including career plans, lifelong earning potential, income needed to educate one’s children, and much more.

The government certainly has a role here, having sent these veterans into harm’s way.  The risks are great.  In Afghanistan, for instance, roughly 1,000 service members have been injured in combat over the past three months.  This three-month figure represents fully one-quarter of all combat-related injuries since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

The types of injuries now seen are similar to those sustained by troops in Iraq in 2007 — often the result of roadside bombs.  Because of improved first aid and quick evacuation of the wounded to well-equipped field hospitals, the survival rate in this war is well above that of past wars.  But this also means that more service personnel are now coming home with injuries requiring extensive medical treatment, rehabilitation, and in some cases long-term care.  The Senate bill provides stipends, travel expenses, training, and medical benefits for caregivers, as well as improved health care for women veterans and vets in rural areas.

Average citizens can help ease the burden on families by supporting organizations which work with wounded warriors, and perhaps even by our own personal gifts of time and talent.  Here and elsewhere, you and I can make a difference in peoples’ lives — if we are willing to turn our world upside down.

It is the coming of this strange, wonderful, world-changing kingdom that we celebrate today on this, the Feast of Christ the King.  Next Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent, New Year’s Day on the Church’s liturgical calendar, we will begin to prepare for the coming of the King himself — for his advent both at Bethlehem and at the end of time.  As the Psalmist says (Ps. 132:4-5), let us therefore not allow our eyes to sleep, nor our eyelids to slumber, until we find a place for this King in our hearts and in our lives, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year B, Proper 29: Lesson — 2 Samuel 23:1-7  |  Gradual —Psalm 132  |  Epistle — Revelation 1:4b-8  |  Gospel — John 18:33-37

Collect for Proper 29:

Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, November 15, 2009 (Year B, Proper 28)

“Then Jesus began to say to them, ‘Beware that no one leads you astray.’” (Mark 13:5)

Most of you are probably aware of the Left Behind series, those 16 novels on the end of the world by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.  They offer a long fictionalized sermon on the end times from a dispensationalist, pre-tribulation, pre-millennial, eschatological perspective.  (I won’t even try to decode that sentence; there isn’t enough time.)  It’s not a very hopeful vision of the future.  Briefly stated, I think the main point of the series is, “Get Jesus — before Jesus gets you.”

The series opens with the rapture, a belief based on 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, where Paul talks about the return of Christ at the end of the age.  God’s trumpet will sound, Paul says, and believers who have died will rise first. (v. 16)  Then, he continues, “we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.” (v. 17)  Thus, Left Behind begins with all the faithful Christians “raptured.”  They simply vanish without a trace, to the consternation of those “left behind” to face the Great Tribulation.

For example, good Christian pilots flying jumbo jets simply vanish out of their cockpits in mid-air, leaving their less faithful passengers to fend for themselves.  From that point (in my view) the plot goes downhill fast.  Skeptical Christians get the faith; nonbelievers suffer and die; and the United Nations becomes a world government dominated by the Antichrist, who is a guy born by artificial insemination and genetically engineered by a band of Satanists.  I suspect these books have made Mr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins a lot of money while sowing fear among a number of the faithful.

What the Left Behind series makes clear, I would say, is that Jesus’ cautionary words on the Mount of Olives — about being misled — were right on target.  To be sure, Jesus believed that, at some point, God would bring the present age to an end.  This section of Mark’s Gospel is known as “the Little Apocalypse,” because the language and images of the end times predominate.  Jesus foretells the destruction of the temple, persecution of the faithful, a terrible portent called “the desolating sacrilege,” and wars and natural disasters, all of which will announce the coming of the Son of Man.  Jesus even predicts that “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” (Mark 13:31)  If “this generation” is understood to refer to people living at that time — to Peter, James, John, Andrew, and their brother and sister disciples — then Jesus may have expected the end to be immanent.

But where the end of the world is concerned, timing is always a difficult matter.  At Matthew 24:36 Jesus also says that no one knows the day or hour at which God will act: “…no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (v. 36)  For that reason the faithful should beware of impostors and charlatans, of snake oil salesmen and fast buck artists, of the mildly deluded and the seriously demented.  “Beware that no one leads you astray,” Jesus tells his friends.  “Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.” (Mark 13:6)

Indeed, many have come in Christ’s name, proclaiming that they and they alone are privy to God’s plans, and that they alone can save people from the destruction to come, if only people will offer unquestioning allegiance to the leader.  Among them were the Millerites, followers of William Miller, who predicted the Second Coming for sometime between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844.  When Jesus failed to show up on schedule, the date was recalculated to October 22, 1844.  Again, Jesus was a no-show.  What followed has come to be called The Great Disappointment — which is something of an understatement, since many Millerites had sold or given away all their worldly possessions and now had to rebuild their lives.  In time the Millerite movement gave rise to the Seventh-day Adventist Church — our good neighbors across the street — who continue to look for the Second Coming, but not on a date certain.

Less happily, Millerism also produced the Branch Dividian movement.  This group established its headquarters at Waco, Texas, in the late 1960s and began preparing for the end.  An accused child abuser, Vernon Wayne Howell, who took the name David Koresh, proclaimed himself the sect’s final prophet.  As you may recall, in 1993 a siege of the Branch Davidian compound at Waco by FBI and ATF agents ended in a massive fire in which Koresh, 54 other adults, and 21 children died.

Christians have wrestled with this idea of the end of the world for two thousand years.  As is clear from his letter to the church at Thessalonica, Paul initially expected Jesus to return at any moment.  Only rather slowly did Paul accept the fact that the Second Coming — what in New Testament Greek is called the parousia, or “presence” of Christ — would be delayed, perhaps for a long time.  A few decades after Paul, St. John the Divine, exiled on the island of Patmos, wrote his Book of Revelation.  The richly symbolic Apocalypse has attracted, confused, and scared the daylights out of generations of the faithful who naturally wonder what it will be like when our Lord returns.  Mr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins are only the more recent of a long line of speculators who have played on the curiosity and fear of Christians for fun and profit.

Our Episcopal Church holds a very orthodox view of the end of the present world.  We proclaim that belief every Sunday when we recite the Nicene Creed: “He [Jesus Christ] will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” (BCP p. 359)  And as we state in the Catechism, “The Christian hope is to live with confidence in newness and fullness of Life, and to await the coming of Christ in glory, and the completion of God’s purpose for the world.” (BCP p. 861)  This world is a work in progress.  At some point, that work will be brought to completion.  Then the world of today will give way to what the Seer of Patmos called “the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” (Rev. 21:2)  “See, the home of God [will be] among mortals,” John declares, [and] “he will wipe every tear from their eyes.  Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” (Rev. 21:3-4)  There will be “a new heaven and a new earth.” (Rev. 21:1)  That is what we teach, and that is what we wait for.

What the Episcopal Church — at least most of our congregations — does not teach is fear.  Sowing spiritual fear in others — the “Get Jesus… before Jesus gets you” kind of fear — does not fulfill our baptismal promise to respect the dignity of every human being, nor in my view does it result in genuine conversion.  At best it creates a weak faith which, to use Jesus’ metaphor, is like seed sown on rocky ground, which has no deep root system and is scorched by the mid-day sun.  At worst it creates a deeply flawed faith which exports its fear onto other people, like a self-propagating computer virus.

Of course, fear is sometimes justified and useful.  If your smoke detector goes off in the middle of the night, a little fear — and the prudent action it leads to — can save you, your family, and your house from disaster.  If you experience crushing chest pain, or a sudden extreme headache, or a sudden change in vision, a little fear — and a call to 911 — can be very helpful and might even save your life.  So fear, which is a God-given urge to preserve one’s life, can be appropriate and helpful.

But fear can also set us on the wrong path.  For example, at the start of World War II, fear of Japanese spies and saboteurs led to the forcible internment of 120,000 American men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry in desert encampments.  In the process many of these citizens lost everything they owned, not to mention their freedom.  Only a few years later, fear of communism gave rise not only to sensible improvements in national security, but also to the anti-communist witch hunt conducted by Sen. Joseph McCarthy against the U.S. Army, Hollywood, and anyone else who seemed a likely suspect.  More recently, fear played a crucial role in the decision to invade Iraq.  And right now fear is very much an issue in our current debate over health insurance reform.

Fear can focus the mind in a helpful way, but it can also distort reality, narrow our perception of alternatives, and corrupt our view of other people.  Fear does not tell us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  On the contrary, quite often fear tells us that these neighbors, who are not like us in some way, are a threat to our survival and must be controlled, or worse.

As the basis for one’s spiritual life, fear is corrosive of the good.  The kind of deep seated fear that makes a person think God wants to consign billions of his children to eternal fire and brimstone is neither reasonable nor, in my opinion, biblical.  Note, for example, what Jesus says at the end of his conversation with Peter, James, John, and Andrew:  “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;” our Lord declares, “there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.  This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”  (Mark 13:8, emphasis supplied)  Interesting twist at the end, isn’t it?  Jesus could have said, “This is but the beginning of the cosmic disaster… the beginning of the suffering…” and so forth.  But no, what Jesus actually says is, “This is but the beginning of the birth pangs,” by which he clearly means a kind of labor which will bring forth new life.

Now, what did we expect from Jesus?  A prophecy of disaster and eternal death for the many?  A promise of good things for a special few who are spiritually superior?  A vision of a divine reign of terror presided over by a hateful God?  If so, perhaps we haven’t been paying attention!  But Paul did pay attention.  In his letter to the Hebrews the Apostle says, “For by a single offering [Jesus Christ] has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.  And the Holy Spirit also testifies for us, for after saying,  “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds,” [then] he [the Spirit] also adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no longer.” (Heb. 10:17)

By definition, the spiritually perfect (whoever they are) have no sins or lawless deeds to be forgotten by God.  So when Paul says God will not remember, he must be talking about other folks, average folks, who still struggle to live up to God’s high standards.  It is they — or more precisely, us! — who know that God, by his very nature, is love, and offers his loving-kindness, forgiveness, and reconciliation to those who genuinely need it, to those who have a few things that need divine forgetting!  Paul is talking about the imperfect — you and me and most of the human race.

Let us, then, not live in fear of what the future may bring, at least from God’s hand.  There will be hard times, of course; our world is a broken place, full of broken people.  And much will be asked of us, including that we “Fear not!” (as Jesus liked to say) because fear just gets in the way of being the kind of people God calls us to be.  We have much work to do between now and the parousia, between now and the time when Christ’s presence will fill the world with new life.  So many people need a word of comfort, need healing, need to know and feel that God loves them and stands with them in every sorrow and joy.  We have plenty to do!

As we tend to these tasks, let us be confident (as Paul assures us) that “he who has promised is faithful.” (Heb. 10: 23)  Let us “provoke one another to love and good deeds,” (Heb. 10:24) knowing that what the end times will bring us is new life in the Lord.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year B, Proper 28: Lesson — 1 Samuel 2:1-10  |  Gradual — Psalm 16  |  Epistle — Hebrews:10:11-25  |  Gospel — Mark 13:1-8

Collect for Proper 28:

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark,learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, November 8, 2009 (Year B, Proper 27)

[Jesus] said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow… out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:43-44)

As so often happens, this morning’s gospel makes more sense if we remember its context.  The story of the Widow’s Offering (or Widow’s Mite, as it is sometimes called) takes place during Mark’s account of Holy Week.  Jesus has entered Jerusalem in triumph on Palm Sunday, acclaimed by the crowd as “the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Mk. 11:9)  Afterward he goes to the temple, looks around “at everything”, and then retires to the village of Bethany. (Mk. 1:11)  The following day, back in Jerusalem, Jesus cleanses the temple.  As Mark reports, he “entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying… and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves… He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?  But you have made it a den of robbers.”

The conventional take on this is that Jesus objected to commercial activity within the temple precincts.  In thinking this we may be imposing our own values on Jesus.  Today we consider it highly questionable, if not downright improper, for a non-profit church to engage in for-profit business activity.  Most of us would agree that a church has no business running something like Heritage USA, the lavish and now defunct South Carolina theme and water park built by Muskegon native and ex-convict Pastor Jim Bakker, of “Jim and Tammy Faye” fame.

Actually, the Jerusalem temple had long been the site of commercial activity.  The money changers exchanged Gentile currency, which could not be used for temple offerings, for temple currency.  Birds were sold for offerings, as provided for in Leviticus (1:14).  The temple treasury, which figures in today’s gospel, served as the nation’s central bank, rather like our Federal Reserve.  In and of itself, all this commercial activity in Judaism’s “sacred space” almost certainly would not have surprised or offended Jesus.  It was just standard operating procedure.

But as one commentator notes, “The Temple priests and scribes lived high on the hog.  They received a cut from every Temple sacrifice and were the beneficiaries of a five-shekel tax on every first-born child… Several other offerings — or perhaps better, taxes — brought in even greater wealth, so much so that priests got into the business of lending money [and foreclosing on] property if the debt was not paid.” (John Petty, Progressive Involvement, 11/2/09)  Moneychangers charged exorbitant exchange rates, by some estimates up to 50%.  Doves were the sacrifice-of-choice for the poor, but dove sellers inflated the price beyond what most poor people could afford.

Accordingly, what Jesus most likely objected to, and what triggered his cleansing of the temple, was not commercial activity per se, but exploitation of the poor by the wealthy in the one place where poor and wealthy should stand on level ground, that is, in God’s house.  In declaring that the authorities have turned the temple into a den of robbers, our Lord quotes Jeremiah when God, through the prophet, passes judgment on the nation.  “Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? [God asks.]  You know, I too am watching, says the Lord.” (Jer. 7:11)  God is not blind.  Evil deeds are not done behind God’s back — or behind Jesus’ back.  Those who exploit the innocent and vulnerable are not pulling off the perfect crime.

This, then, is the background for Jesus’ comments about the scribes and the widow’s offering.  He notes, first, that the scribes “like to walk around in long robes, and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats” at worship and banquets. (Mark 12:38-39)  They make a display of their long prayers, and in so doing “devour widows’ houses.” (Mark 12:40)

Now, you may recall that the prophets often held forth on the subject of widows and orphans.  They excoriated the leaders of Israel for their harsh treatment of the vulnerable, and threatened God’s retribution if the authorities did not mend their ways.  For example, Isaiah, speaking for the Lord, pleads with God’s rebellious children to “…remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”  (Isa. 1:16-17)  The prophet Malachi declares that in the day of judgment God will take swift action against those who oppress hired laborers, widows, orphans, and sojourners. (Mal.3:5)

This concern for widows underscores the vulnerability in Jesus’ day of women who had lost their husbands.  The Hebrews believed that early death was evidence of divine retribution for sin, a crime which was popularly believed to extend to the deceased husband’s spouse.  It was a disgrace to be a widow.  In the Book of Ruth, Naomi returns to Bethlehem, having lost not only her husband, but also her two sons.  Accompanied by her widowed daughter-in-law Ruth, Naomi gets a decidedly lukewarm reception from the women of the town.  “Is this Naomi?” they ask.  She responds, “Call me no longer Naomi [the name means “pleasant”], call me Mara [which means “bitter”], for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.  I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty….” (Ruth 1:19-21)

Empty puts it mildly.  A widow in Israel had no right of inheritance from her deceased husband.  If she was childless she could return to her father’s house, but if the family was too poor to support her, she could be turned out to fend for herself.  One commentator notes that in Hebrew the word “widow” resembles the word “be mute,” suggesting that widows had no voice in society.  Some believe that widows were even required to wear identifying clothing, perhaps something like Hester Prynne’s notorious  “A” (for adultery) in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. The best a widow could expect was to find another husband.

That is exactly what happens in today’s Old Testament reading.  The widowed Naomi encourages her daughter-in-law to seduce Naomi’s kinsman Boaz.  Naomi is none too subtle about this.  “My daughter, I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you… When [Boaz] lies down [tonight]… go and uncover his feet [that’s a euphemism] and lie down.” (Ruth 3:1, 4)  Ruth does as she is told, ends up married and pregnant, and her son Obed becomes the grandfather of King David.  Naomi’s effort to make Ruth secure is successful.

With other widows it does not go so well.  In Jesus’ day, long after Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz, long after the time of the prophets, widows were still being used and abused.  Jesus criticizes the scribes because they say long prayers — probably helping widows to pray, for a fee.  The longer the prayer, the higher the fee.  Thus did they “devour widows’ houses” while appearing all the more pious. (Mark 12:40)

Then Mark tells us that Jesus sat opposite the treasury, watching what people contributed, and commenting to his disciples.  “A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny.” (Mark 12:42)  Jesus tells his disciples, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.  For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:44)

The conventional interpretation of this passage is that Jesus is deeply impressed by the woman’s generosity.  This widow has given “all she had to live on,” while wealthier contributors have given only a small fraction of their great abundance.  In this way the “widow’s mite” — a copper coin about the size of a shirt button — has become a symbol of good stewardship, a token of selfless and enthusiastic support for God’s work in the world.

But look again.  Does Mark say Jesus approves of what this widow does?  Does he tell his disciples to be like this woman?  Is she a model of good stewardship for us?

In fact, Jesus reports only what he sees: she has put in far more, by any fair measure, than the others.  But I suspect our Lord was deeply offended by what he saw, recognizing that this woman had — again, by any reasonable standard — become complicit in her own exploitation, in a shake-down scheme engineered by those in charge of the temple.  You can almost hear the hustle as the con artist works his mark: “Here’s your dove, lady.  Yah, I know, nice doves cost a lot of money.  And you realize, of course, that God doesn’t hear short prayers.  If you want God’s attention, you need long prayers.  Sure, long prayers cost more, but you’re wasting your money on short ones.  And when you’re finished, get in that line over there and put whatever you have left into the treasury.  That’s a good girl.  What?  That penny is all you have left to live on?  Well, if a little food on the table is worth more to you than pleasing God….”

Things haven’t changed much in two thousand years.  The slick, the heartless, and the greedy still take advantage of the vulnerable — the “widows and orphans” of our age.  Jack Madoff may be the latest poster boy for such exploitation — and Madoff seemed to have specialized in fleecing elderly widows.  But with increasing frequency seniors are being targeted by financial criminals:

• Nine years ago the U.S. Senate’s Special Committee on Aging estimated that American lost some $40 billion a year to telemarketing fraud.  Much of that was almost certainly directed at elders who, after all, spend a lot of time at home.
• AARP reports that in 2008 the State of Florida, with the nation’s second largest population of people over age 65, found that reports of elder financial abuse had increased 13% in the previous two years, while reports of the same type of crime in Texas rose 8%.
• A nationwide study of elder financial abuse, covering the period 1997 to 2007, found that reports had increased 30% over that decade.
• Another study estimates that only 1 in 14 cases of elder financial abuse is reported to the authorities, so whatever we know is happening is, in fact, just the tip of a much larger iceberg.
• Scammers tend to prey on people in times of distress.  For example, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina many elderly homeowners along the Gulf Coast were conned by contractors, or by people posing as contractors, who took money to do repairs and then either  did substandard work or simply disappeared with the money.
• Reverse mortgages — which get lots of air time on TV these days — are a new, fertile field for con artists, who may sign up an elderly client for a mortgage he or she doesn’t need, charge exorbitant fees, and then leave the client with a disastrous loan.

This problem is made all the more complicated because, quite often, the perpetrator is someone the elderly person knows and loves — a relative or friend or care-giver.  I suspect so many of these crimes go unreported precisely because of that close relationship, thereby making the elderly person unwillingly complicit in their own mistreatment.  The toll this takes on a person’s self-esteem and willingness to trust is beyond measure.

The Church has a role to play here.  We often use family imagery to describe parish life.  But this is one area where family — the congregational family, I mean — can show that its bonds are thicker-than-blood by protecting the most vulnerable among us.  If we are aware of the signs of elder financial abuse (these are readily available at many web sites), and if we talk candidly about the problem, and if we are prepared to defend those who may be victimized, then perhaps we can make a difference.

After all, stewardship is not just about putting in your last penny.  Stewardship of people and their physical, emotional, spiritual and financial security is part of our stewardship work, too.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year B, Proper 27: Lesson — Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17  |  Gradual — Psalm 127  |  Epistle — Hebrews 9:24-28  |  Gospel — 12:38-44

Collect for Proper 27:

O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009 (All Saints Day)

The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God… In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace. (Wisdom of Solomon 3:1)

Today is All Saints Day.  That means we’ve made it safely through another Halloween.  Halloween originated as the Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-an) when the spirits of the family’s ancestors were invited home for a little celebration.  Later it was baptized by the Church, becoming Hallowe’en, a contraction of All Hallows’ Even, that is, the evening before All Saints.  Now in the U.S. it’s our annual festival of costumes, candy, and horror movies.

And if today is All Saints, then tomorrow is All Souls Day, or the Commemoration of All Faithful Departed.  This is a traditional Catholic holy day when mass is celebrated for the benefit of those who failed to attain full sanctification and moral perfection before death, and therefore got hung up in Purgatory, halfway between here and heaven.  Purgatory was originally a process of purification, and only came to be thought of as a geographically situated place during the Middle Ages.

Purgatory is the subject of much speculation.  I’ve always thought of it as a kind of spiritual car wash, where the prayers of the living swab and sluice away the sins of the deceased, thereby allowing them entrance into heaven.  However, most Anglicans do not put stock in Purgatory, considering it (in the words of the Prayer Book) a “fond thing, vainly invented.”  And as you may recall, abuses involving indulgences, which in the 16th century were popularly thought to reduce a person’s time in Purgatory, figured large in the Protestant Reformation.

So today, wedged in between Halloween on one side and All Souls Day on the other, is All Saints Day.  In Western Christianity, today is a day set apart for commemoration of all the saints, known and unknown.  This feast day originated about the year 610 of the Common Era, in the month of May, when Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon at Rome to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the martyrs.  Only a couple decades later Pope Gregory III moved it to November 1, and here it has stayed for the past 13 centuries.  For Catholics and most major Protestant denominations, including Anglicans, it’s one of the most important feast days of the year.

All Saints is usually thought of as a commemoration of the dead.  In many parishes the names of deceased loved ones are read as we remember those who have gone on to glory in “Jerusalem the golden… the home of God’s elect.” (Hymn 624)  Indeed, we will read a number of names today in the context of the Holy Eucharist.  As that great hymn reminds us:

They stand, those halls of Zion, all jubilant with song,

and bright with many an angel, and all the martyr throng;

the Prince is ever in them, the daylight is serene,

the pastures of the blessed are decked in glorious sheen.

We remember “God’s elect” today because of the companionship we shared with them in this life, and we do so knowing that in time we too will be gathered to our ancestors in that “sweet and blessed country that eager hearts expect.”

But the saints at rest are only half the story.  All Saints means just that — all of the saints! And we misconstrue both the word and the idea of “sainthood” if we apply it just to those who have died, or just to those who in this life have achieved an unusual degree of moral perfection.

In the Hebrew scriptures the term holy ones — or in some English translations, saints — is commonly used to describe Israel as God’s people.  “You are a people holy to the Lord your God,” says the Deuteronomist, [for] “the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession….” (Deut. 7:6)  Therefore, because God loves his people, “all those consecrated to him [are] in his hand.” (Deut. 33:3)

“The Lord loves justice,” declares the Psalmist; “he does not forsake his faithful ones” — that is, he does not forsake his saints.  (Ps. 37:29)

In the Book of Daniel the “holy ones of the Most High” — or saints — are those to whom the kingdom will be given in the coming day of judgment.  In Daniel’s vision they are to be the possession of “one like a son of man” (Dan. 7:18) to whom the Ancient One has “given dominion and glory and kingship”, and whose “dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away.” (Dan. 7:14)

In the New Testament the term saints describes the Christian community, those who are “in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 1:1)  As in Daniel, the saints will be associated with Christ in the final judgment.  (1 Cor. 6:2-3)  Thus saint early became a common term for a member of Christ’s Church, and it is in this sense that Paul writes, for example, “To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints….” (Rom. 1:7)

In short, the saints are not just the deceased, but the living as well — the saints at work as well as the saints at rest.  To paraphrase Pogo, we have met the saints, and they are us!  You and I — we, too, are “the holy ones of the Most High,” to whom the kingdom has been promised.  As Christians we have that status because we have been baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

For this reason, I can think of no better day for a child to be baptized than this, All Saints Day.  Today little Isabella Rae Bakunas takes her place among the saints and is called, in due course, to be a witness to God’s love and faithfulness to his people.  I hope that across the years Isabella’s parents and godparents, and all her brothers and sisters in the Church, will remind her again and again that she is part of a very large, very long-lasting, very transformative organization called the Church, and along with millions upon millions, both living and dead, that she is one of “the holy ones.”

Now, I suspect that we don’t feel very holy today.  “I’m no Mother Teresa,” you might declare.  And that’s true: a Mother Teresa we aren’t!  Nor are we an Albert Schweitzer, the musician, philosopher and theologian who in the 1920s, at the height of his career, was called to practice medicine in west central Africa.  Nor are we an Elizabeth of Hungary who, as a widow, built a hospital and cared for the poor and sick until, ill and exhausted, she died in the year 1231 at the age of just 24 years.  Nor are we like most of the other worthy people who have special days assigned to them on the Church’s calendar.

The fact is, we aren’t expected to be exceptional.  We’re just expected to be faithful to our baptismal vows:

To continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship…

To persevere in resisting evil, in the world and in ourselves…

To proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ…

To seek and serve Christ in all persons…

To strive for justice and peace, respecting every person’s dignity.

That’s all!  And that’s really more than enough to keep us “holy ones of the Most High” busy on most days.  Rest assured that if you’ve done all that and have time on your hands, God can find you something else to do!  God knows that in a world so full of need as ours, the opportunities for resisting evil, proclaiming the good news, serving Christ in others, and striving for justice and peace are endless.  And God knows that our gifts are sufficient for the work we have been given.  All we need is the will and the grit.

And, again, if you have some nagging fear that you’re not good enough, not saintly enough, to inherit the kingdom and join your loved ones in eternal bliss — well, as a baptized Christian, that issue has already been settled.  As someone once said, “Every saint has a past; every sinner has a future.”  Our future is assured.  What matters is how you and I spend the time God has given us here and now.  We can waste that time, or use it well.  That’s our choice.

Therefore, as Saint Paul wrote, “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” (Heb. 12:1)  May God bless us in our work.  Amen.

—The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for All Saints Day (Year B): Lesson — Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9  |  Gradual — Psalm 24  |  Epistle — Revelation 21:1-6a  |  Gospel — John 11:32-44

Collect for All Saints:

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting.  Amen.