St. John's Episcopal Church

Sermon for Sunday, February 28, 2010 (Year C, Lent 2)

…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.’” (Luke 13:31-32)

Today I want to share with you a comment on the gospel reading by The Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor of Piedmont College in Demorest, GA.  Ms. Taylor is an Episcopal priest, author of twelve books on spirituality, and a highly regarded preacher.  This item was published in the Feb. 25, 1986, edition of The Christian Century.

On the western slope of the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem, sits a small chapel called Dominus Flevit.  The name comes from Luke’s Gospel, which contains not one but two accounts of Jesus’ grief over the loss of Jerusalem.  According to tradition, it was here that Jesus wept over the city that had refused his ministrations.

Inside the chapel, the altar is centered before a high arched window that looks out over the city.  Iron grillwork divides the view into sections, so that on a sunny day the effect is that of a stained-glass window.  The difference is that this subject is alive.  It is not some artist’s rendering of the holy city but the city itself, with the Dome of the Rock in the bottom left corner and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the middle.  Two-thirds of the view is the cloudless sky above the city which the grillwork turns into a quilt of blue squares.  Perhaps this is where the heavenly Jerusalem hovers over the earthly one, until the time comes for the two to meet?

Down below, on the front of the altar, is a picture of what never happened in that city.  It is a mosaic medallion of a white hen with a golden halo around her head.  Her red comb resembles a crown, and her wings are spread wide to shelter the pale yellow chicks that crowd around her feet.  There are seven of them, with black dots for eyes and orange dots for beaks.  They look happy to be there.  The hen looks ready to spit fire if anyone comes near her babies.

But like I said, it never happened, and the picture does not pretend that it did.  The medallion is rimmed with red words in Latin.  Translated into English they read, “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!”  The last phrase is set outside the circle, in a pool of red underneath the chicks’ feet: you were not willing.

The same lament appears in Matthew’s Gospel, but Jerusalem does not mean the same thing to him that it does to Luke.  Luke’s Gospel begins and ends in the temple in Jerusalem.  Zechariah learns in the temple that he and Elizabeth will have a child [John the Baptist].  Mary and Joseph bring their own child there when the time comes.  Simeon and Anna deliver their prophecies [about Jesus] there, and Jesus returns when he is 12 years old to take his place among the teachers of Israel.

All told, Luke mentions Jerusalem 90 times in his Gospel, while all the other New Testament writers combined mention it only 49 times.  It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Luke loves the place — so rich in history and symbol, so dense with expectation and fear.  Jerusalem is the dwelling place of God, the place where God’s glory shall be revealed (Isa. 24:23).  It is also the place where God is betrayed by those who hate the good and love what is evil (Mic. 3:2).  Nothing that happens in Jerusalem is insignificant.  When Jerusalem obeys God, the world spins peacefully on its axis.  When Jerusalem ignores God, the whole planet wobbles.

If the city were filled with hardy souls, this would not be a dangerous situation.  Unfortunately, it is filled with pale yellow chicks and at least one fox.  In the absence of a mother hen, some of the chicks have taken to following the fox around.  Others are huddled out in the open where anything with claws can get to them.  Across the valley, a white hen with a gold halo around her head is clucking for all she is worth.  Most of the chicks cannot hear her, and the ones that do make no response.  They no longer recognize her voice.  They have forgotten who they are.

If you have ever loved someone you could not protect, then you understand the depth of Jesus’ lament.  All you can do is open your arms.  You cannot make anyone walk into them.  Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable posture in the world — wings spread, breast exposed — but if you mean what you say, then this is how you stand.

Given the number of animals available, it is curious that Jesus chooses a hen.  Where is the biblical precedent for that?  What about the mighty eagle of Exodus, or Hosea’s stealthy leopard?  What about the proud lion of Judah, mowing down his enemies with a roar?  Compared to any of those, a mother hen does not inspire much confidence.  No wonder some of the chicks decided to go with the fox.

But a hen is what Jesus chooses, which — if you think about it — is pretty typical of him.  He is always turning things upside down, so that children and peasants wind up on top while kings and scholars land on the bottom.  He is always wrecking our expectations of how things should turn out by giving prizes to losers and paying the last first.  So of course he chooses a chicken, which is about as far from a fox as you can get.  That way the options become very clear: you can live by licking your chops, or you can die protecting the chicks.

Jesus won’t be king of the jungle in this or any other story.  What he will be is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm.  She has no fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles.  All she has is her willingness to shield her babies with her own body.  If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first.

Which he does, as it turns out.  He slides up on her one night in the yard while all the babies are asleep.  When her cry wakens them, they scatter.  She dies the next day where both foxes and chickens can see her — wings spread, breast exposed — without a single chick beneath her feathers.  It breaks her heart, but it does not change a thing.  If you mean what you say, then this is how you stand.

Ms. Taylor asks, “Where is the biblical precedent for that?” — meaning the biblical precedent for Jesus’ reference to a hen gathering her chicks under her wings.  Actually, it’s from the Second Book of Esdras, which is generally included among the works we call the Apocrypha.  In chapter 1 the scribe and Torah master Ezra reports, “The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Go, declare to my people their evil deeds, and to their children the iniquities that they have committed against me…’” (2 Esdras 1:4-5)

Then, after reciting all God’s mercies during and after the Exodus, and noting the peoples’ failure to keep his statutes, God says, “What shall I do to you, O Jacob?  You, Judah, would not obey me… Because you have forsaken me, I also will forsake you… Thus says the Lord Almighty: Have I not entreated you as a father entreats his sons or a mother her daughter or a nurse her children, so that you should be my people and I should be your God, and that you should be my children and I should be your father?  I gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.  But now, what shall I do to you?  I will cast you out from my presence… I sent you my servants the prophets, but you have taken and killed them and torn their bodies in pieces; I will require their blood of you, says the Lord.” (2 Esdras 1:24-25, 28-32)

Jesus knew his scripture, that’s for sure!  The Pharisees who warn our Lord about Herod’s threat of murder aren’t telling him anything new.  Jerusalem has always had its share of foxes ready to prey on the defenseless chicks.  And those God sent to call the foxes to account have often been killed in order to protect the status quo.  You could say much the same about any great capital of the world — like Washington, D.C. in our own day.  Except, of course, no heavenly Washington will come down to meet and transform the earthly one.  That is too much to expect.

In any case, by his allusion to the words of Ezra, Jesus makes it clear that he has work to do, and he intends to do it, no matter what.  He knows the risks.  He knows that, in the end, a hen stands little chance against a fox.  And he knows that many of those for whom the hen will soon lay down her life will not notice, much less honor, her sacrifice.  In fact, none of this hen’s “chicks,” even the most devoted, is worth what our Lord is prepared to offer.  Nonetheless, Jesus is determined to proceed.  As Ms. Taylor says, “If you mean what you say, then this is how you stand.”

Across the centuries we Christians have understood that we are called to imitate Christ.  Being like Christ was central to St. Paul’s teaching, and so he urges the Philippians to “…join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.” (Phil. 3:17)  We must all live like our Master, Paul says, the One who was willing to sacrifice himself on behalf of the weak and vulnerable.

Such sacrifice is not much in vogue today, either in politics or in the Church.  We live in an age in which doctrinal purity matters most.  Whether it’s politics or the Church, what counts most today is talking and acting in a way that pleases “the base.”  Attending to the needs of the chicks — those who are at risk, those in need — doesn’t earn points in this game.

I don’t believe that Jesus would be pleased.  But neither would he be surprised.  I think he would recognize the similarity of this age to his own, and, as Ms. Taylor puts it, he would recommend that if we mean what we say, then we must take a just and courageous stand, gather the weak and vulnerable under our wings, and trust that God will make it all work out in the end.  What Christ did for us, we must do for others.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year C, Lent 2: Lesson — Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18  •  Gradual — Psalm 27  •  Epistle — Philippians 3:17-4:1  •  Gospel — Luke 13:31-35

Collect for Lent 2:

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.

Sermon for Sunday, February 21, 2010 (Year C, Lent 1)

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit… was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. (Luke 4:1-2)

Traditionally, Lent begins with an account of the Temptation.  Few stories are as familiar to most Christians as this memory of Jesus in the wilderness.  Here the devil encourages him to turn stones into bread, urges him to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple so that angels will bear him up, and offers him authority over the kingdoms of the world.  In exchange, all Jesus has to do is shift his loyalty from God to the Tempter.  As we know, Jesus refuses.  In the end, the devil throws in the towel, at least for the time being.

That’s the story as Matthew (4:1-11) and Luke (4:1-13) have it.  Mark’s account (1:12-13) is quite brief, just two verses, and notes simply that Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for forty days, surrounded by wild animals and tended by angels.  With all this intriguing detail — bread, temple, kingdoms, wild beasts, angels — we may neglect to note two elements that the three gospel writers agree on: that this event took place in the wilderness, and that it lasted forty days.  It is these two elements, I think, which help unlock the meaning of this story.

Clearly, the Temptation could have taken place anywhere.  Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth would have been an appropriate setting.  So would Capernaum, which soon became the base for Jesus’ ministry.  Jerusalem would have made an excellent backdrop, as would the shore of the Sea of Galilee or any one of the little villages scattered across the Galilean landscape.  But this story is set in the wilderness — in an area unmodified by human activity.  Here Jesus wanders alone, with no food and (we assume) little water.  So, why the wilderness?

And, clearly, the Temptation could have taken place within the space of an afternoon.  The devil didn’t need a full forty days to make his case unless, perhaps, he was counting on hunger and thirst to weaken Jesus’ resolve.  So, why forty days?

Placed at the start of Jesus’ ministry, located in the wilderness, and lasting forty units of time, this story draws an intentional parallel with the Exodus, the story of Israel’s beginning as a nation.  Note that the Hebrews are elected to be God’s people, God’s children, while Jesus is God’s Son.  The Hebrews are brought up out of Egypt, while Jesus and his family (at least in Matthew’s gospel) escape from Herod by fleeing into Egypt, returning to Galilee after Herod’s death.  The people of Israel sojourn in the wilderness for forty years, while Jesus is in the wilderness forty days.  Israel is tested in the wilderness, as is Jesus.  Their time in the wilderness prepares Israel for the work that lies ahead.  His time in the wilderness prepares Jesus for his public ministry and sacrifice.

These parallels extend, in my view, to the nature of the temptation that both Israel and Jesus face in the desert.  For Israel, it was a bad case of buyer’s remorse.  As one commentator puts it, “The people are a tiresome and faithless lot during their long and arduous journey.  They murmur, whine, and rebel constantly, blind to God’s favors and signs.” (Carol A. Redmount, Oxford History of the Biblical World, p. 60)  The God of Moses doesn’t deliver as expected, so the Hebrews make a god of their own, the notorious molten calf, and worship that instead.

In the case of Jesus’ temptation, the devil’s goal is to seduce Jesus into worshiping him instead of God.  To this end Satan offers our Lord the opportunity to dominate and manipulate others by control over the necessities of life, symbolized by food; by control over their spiritual lives, represented by a “trick” performed from the temple roof; and by political control, symbolized by the kingdoms of the world.  If Jesus will simply worship the devil, all this and more will be his.

Why was this memory included in the three gospels?  I suspect that Matthew’s, Mark’s, and Luke’s communities saw themselves as “the new Israel,” elected, brought up from bondage, and sent off on a journey.  Perhaps their road was proving more difficult than expected.  If some new Christians were pining away for “the fleshpots of Egypt” — that is, for the bodily and spiritual comforts of the old ways — and were returning to paganism, it may be that those who remained faithful needed reassurance that their hard road would eventually lead to “a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Deut. 26:9)  If Jesus in the wilderness could remain obedient to God’s will, then they could too.

And why should we care about Jesus being tempted? Well, consider that we are beginning, too — or perhaps I should say, beginning again.  God has called us away from the usual daily grind to make our annual journey to Easter.  We call this journey Lent and, not by accident, it lasts forty days, from Ash Wednesday to sundown on Holy Saturday.  By custom it became for the Church a time to prepare for celebration of the Paschal Mystery.  We believe that by his death and resurrection, Jesus brought us up from slavery to sin and death, and won for us a place in God’s eternal kingdom.

But these are ideas not easily grasped!  The problem is, most of the time we don’t feel filled with new life… we don’t feel free from the grip of our shortcomings… we know that death will some day claim us… and this world of ours sure doesn’t look or feel like a celestial kingdom.  But that is because we are so tied up with the busyness of our own lives, so burdened by expectations and routine, and so spiritually short-sighted that we cannot see God’s “hand at work in the world about us.” (Eucharistic Prayer C, BCP, p.372)  Therefore, in her wisdom Mother Church has provided us these few days — these forty days — for a spiritual “wilderness journey.”

Now, many Christians have been taught that Lent is a time to take an accounting of our sins.  And so it is — but no more in Lent than any other time of the year.  Lent invites deeper discernment about our weaknesses and the strength we have in our Lord.

The “official” definition of sin, as provided in the Prayer Book’s Catechism, is that sin “is the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.” (BCP p. 848)  We seek our own will because we like the feeling of being in control, but in this world our ability to control situations, institutions, and other people is more illusion than reality.  Nonetheless, like Israel in the wilderness, we are prone to be stiff-necked and rebellious, and our willfulness leads us astray.

Specific acts of sin, the fruit of our willfulness, may be great (such as murder and mayhem) or small (not putting money in the parking meter), but all forms of sin are alike in that they disfigure our relationship with God, other people, and the world.

Sin is also cumulative.  The burden of sin builds up over time, rather like sedimentary rock.  We carry around the memory of these errors year after year, and add new layers, and in time the structure becomes so heavy that it threatens to crush us.  As the old form of confession in Rite One puts it, “…the remembrance of [our sins] is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable.” (BCP p. 331)

Let me cite you an example.  In the late 1950s my father worked for a restaurant company in Philadelphia.  His boss was man who, in all charity, was the most arrogant, mean-spirited, and morally bankrupt person I have ever encountered — a git, as the British might say, a foolish and worthless person.  In Philadelphia at this time the vending machine business was controlled by organized crime, and my father’s boss cut a deal with these people to skim money from a couple vending machines in one of his restaurants.  The process was simple.  When the coin in the vending machines was counted up, proceeds from two of the machines were diverted into a private bank account for my father’s boss.

Unfortunately, Dad’s boss required that my father handle this transaction personally.  In demanding that he do so, he made my father part of this illegal skimming — the bagman, so to speak.  Now, my father was an ethical man.  He had also spent his childhood in Chicago during the heyday of the mob.  My father could certainly have refused his boss’ demand, but he felt he had no choice.  He had a wife and four young children to support and protect.  Had he objected, his boss would have put him on the street without a second thought, and who knows what the mob goons might have done.

Consider what it means to be “enslaved by sin” — either your own or someone else’s.  This little weekly cash caper was a crime, contrary to every moral precept Dad had learned at his parents’ knees.  His involvement was a serious moral failing.  Yet he was trapped.  Thankfully, the arrangement ended after a few months.  And just for the record, years later, after my father retired, his former boss went bankrupt and died penniless and unlamented.  Yet I believe my father carried the memory of this episode with him for the rest of his life, and managed to shed its weight only a few days before his death.

I said that Lent was a time for deeper discernment not only of our shortcomings, but of the strength we have in our Lord.  What my father for so long failed to see, and what so many Christians fail to see, is that we do not have to carry the burden of our errors from one end of life to the other.  By his obedience to the Father’s will, Jesus has set us free!  In the Letter to the Hebrews we are told that, “…we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb. 4:15)  I take this to mean that Jesus knew every need or feeling or urge — every temptation — that any person may experience, but he did not act sinfully.  Christ can sympathize with us, because he himself personally knew all that you and I struggle with.  Moreover, our Lord can and will free us from that burden, because he loves us with a passion beyond anything we can imagine.

In turn this means that as members of his Body, you and I may call upon Christ to supply what we lack — if possible, to avoid yielding to temptation and straying into sin, or when necessary, to seek and receive forgiveness so that the burden of past error may be lifted from our shoulders.  With God, it’s not “three strikes and you’re out.”  Rather, as Psalm 51 puts it, “The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Ps. 51:18)  God’s readiness to forgive is constant.  We simply have to ask.

During these forty days of Lent, let us create for ourselves — in some small way — a wilderness place in our daily routine where we may encounter the Lord in honesty and faith.  In that wilderness place let us candidly recognize both our weaknesses and the strength we have in Jesus Christ, so that we may know and feel the grace which sets us free.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year C, Lent 1: Lesson — Deuteronomy 26:1-11  •  Gradual — Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16  •  Epistle — Romans 10:8-13  •  Gospel — Luke 4:1-13

Collect for Lent I: 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.

Sermon for Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Our days are like the grass; we flourish like a flower of the field; / When the wind goes over it, it is gone, and its place shall know it no more. / But the merciful goodness of the Lord endures for ever on those who fear him…. (Ps. 103:15-17)

To many people Ash Wednesday seems a grim day.  This is supposed to be the day you and I trudge off to church to be lectured about our sins, reminded of our mortality, decorated on our foreheads with a smear of ashes, and then, after this annual reprimand, sent home to contemplate the errors of our ways.  No wonder so many people find going to church on Ash Wednesday inconvenient.  No wonder so many people consider the season of Lent, which this day begins, distasteful.

This attitude about Ash Wednesday and Lent is rooted in what we might call a forensic, or legal, understanding of our relationship with God.  From this standpoint you and I are mere criminals, unrepentant wrongdoers, while God is police, judge, jury, and most especially, executioner.  This is essentially the position taken by the noted 18th century preacher Jonathan Edwards in his sermon entitled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, preached on July 8, 1741, at Enfield, CT.

We are habitual and unrepentant transgressors, Edwards would say.  We are deserving of hell.  Nothing prevents us from being condemned save God’s gracious restraint.  But that divine restraint may end at any moment, and our fate thus hovers on a knife edge.  Satan stands ready to claim us as soon as God gives him leave.

“There is nothing that keeps wicked men, at any one moment, out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God,”  Edwards declared.  “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like the fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.”  Our one hope is Christ, Edwards concludes.  Seek refuge in him and we may be saved “from the wrath to come.”

Edwards’ sermon is a classic, and it speaks to the religious ferment which swept the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s during the First Great Awakening, thus helping set the stage for the Revolutionary War.  But to modern ears Edwards’ theology sounds antique.  Most Christians these days, even many conservative Church folk, don’t see themselves suspended like a spider above the fires of hell, with just “the mere pleasure of God” holding them in check.

We must grant Edwards his point that we human beings are masters at making a mess of things.  If we are honest about our own behavior, and if we look with clear eyes on the world around us, it must be obvious that we are as caught up in wrongdoing as ever, and perhaps more than ever.  The Ash Wednesday Litany of Penitence is a comprehensive checklist of spiritual shortcomings.  We struggle with pride, hypocrisy, impatience, self-indulgence, exploitation of others, intemperate love of worldly goods, negligence in prayer and worship, and blindness to human need and suffering.  As it was in Edwards’ day, so it is in ours.

But unlike Edwards, many 21st century Christians do not see our relationship with God as primarily forensic, a relationship of crime and punishment — at least not most Episcopalians and those in many other mainline churches.  Just as we must not discount our shortcomings, so we must not ignore God’s compassion wonderfully expressed in our creation, in the Lord’s fidelity to the covenant across the generations, and most especially in God’s gift of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It was Jesus who made his Father’s compassion the touchstone of his message and ministry, and it is that same compassion which Jesus urges his disciples to practice as a lifestyle.

Psalm 103, which I expect Jesus knew by heart, leaves little doubt what God expects and does:

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and do not forget all his benefits.

He forgives all your sins,

and heals all your infirmities;

He redeems your life from the grave

and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness…

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy,

slow to anger and of great kindness. (Ps. 103:2-4,8)

The author of Psalm 103 recognizes that we are sick with sin.  But the writer also sees the loving-kindness of God expressed in the Lord’s willingness to heal.  God intends to save us from the abyss.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

so is his mercy great upon those who fear him.

As far as the east is from the west,

so far has he removed our sins from us.

As a father cares for his children,

so does the Lord care for those who fear him. (Ps. 103:11-13)

We cannot pretend before God.  God sees our misconduct, but seeks to put as much distance as possible between us and the evil which sickens us.  In this God is like a parent who wants only to protect his or her child.

Our days are like the grass;

we flourish like a flower of the field;

When the wind goes over it, it is gone,

and its place shall know it no more.

But the merciful goodness of the Lord

endures for ever on those who fear him,

and his righteousness on children’s children. (Ps. 103:15-17)

Our mortality has never been in question.  We are dust, and to dust shall we return.  Yet even at the grave we sing of the enduring and merciful goodness of the Lord upon us and upon our children.  That is the hope of Christians across two thousand years.

With all due respect to the Rev. Mr. Edwards, I cannot not believe that God threatens to fling us into oblivion in a moment of absent-mindedness or of pique or even of righteous wrath.  We are sinners in the hands, not of an angry God, but of a merciful and loving God who asks only that we repent and return to his ways.  And to make that possible God has given us his Son, the good shepherd, who seeks out the lost and leads us home.  If we take up our cross and follow Jesus, as he urges us to do, then we shall not go astray.

Today, Ash Wednesday, and the six weeks of Lent that lie before us, are indeed a time for rigorous honesty about “things done and left undone.”  But equally, this season is a time for us to reflect with joy and wonder upon the words of Henry Alford’s great Easter hymn:

The strife is o’er, the battle done,

the victory of life is won;

the song of triumph has begun.

The powers of death have done their worst,

but Christ their legions hath dispersed:

let shout of holy joy outburst.

He closed the yawning gates of hell,

the bars from heaven’s high portals fell;

let hymns of praise his triumphs tell. (Hymn 208, vv. 1, 2, 4)

Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year C, Ash Wednesday: Lesson — Joel 2:1-2, 12-17  •  Gradual — Psalm 103  •  2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10  •  Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Collect for Ash Wednesday:

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, February 14, 2010 (Year C, Last Epiphany)

…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…. (Luke 9:28-29)

What did Jesus look like?  That’s one of the enduring mysteries.

This morning’s reading from the Gospel of Luke is remarkable, because together with its parallels in Mark (9:2-8) and Matthew (17:1-8), this story of the Transfiguration provides the New Testament’s only physical description of Jesus.  It speaks of Jesus transfigured — glorified — but says nothing about his appearance before or after.  Living as we do in a world dominated by visual images, it seems most odd that not a single eyewitness left even a passing comment on what the Master looked like.

Some say that, as Jews, Jesus’ first disciples were prohibited from making images of the divine.  Remember that business about, “You shall not make for yourself an idol… [and] You shall not bow down to them or worship them….” (Ex. 20:4-5)  Perhaps, as the divinity of Christ was acknowledged after the resurrection, the eyewitnesses felt that any concern with the Master’s physical appearance was irreverent.

It may also have been irrelevant.  Physically, Jesus seems to have been unexceptional.  When St. Matthew describes our Lord’s betrayal he says that Judas had to help the High Priest’s minions figure out who to arrest.  “Now the betrayer,” Matthew reports, “had given them a sign, saying, ‘The one I will kiss is the man; arrest him.’”  Evidently no one would have assumed by his appearance that Jesus was the leader of these Galilean troublemakers.

However, during the first centuries of the Common Era, speculation about Jesus’ physical appearance increased.  Gentile Christians apparently found renderings of Jesus spiritually helpful.  Images of our Lord began to appear at least by the 3rd century and became more common as the years passed.  However, there was little agreement about what Jesus looked like.

We should recognize that culture influences one’s vision of Jesus.  Xenophanes of Colophon, a Greek philosopher and religious critic who lived some 600 years before Christ, famously satirized the tendency of human beings to make gods in their own image.  As he wrote, “The Ethiops [Ethiopians] say that their gods are flat-nosed and black, / While the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair.  / Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw, / …then the horses would draw their gods / Like horses, and cattle like cattle….”  Xenophanes’ point is that when we humans portray our gods, we often take our cues from the surrounding cultural and even natural environment.

For example, a mid-3rd century image of Jesus as The Good Shepherd in the catacombs of Rome shows a rather boyish, beardless, short-haired Jesus carrying home the wayward lamb — perhaps the work of a young artist reflecting local beard and hair customs.  By the late-4th century a mural in another Roman catacomb depicts an older, more care-worn Jesus, this time with long hair and a beard — perhaps reflecting changing styles of grooming among the artist’s fellow Romans.

As icons came to play a significant role in Eastern (Orthodox) Christianity, a conventional portrayal of Jesus developed: thin face, severe expression, long hair parted in the center and carefully pulled together at the back of the neck, short beard and mustache, right hand held up in blessing, and a nimbus (or halo) around the head.  This conventional portrayal seems to have influenced art in the West, as well.  For example, a 15th century painting of The Baptism of Christ by the Early Italian Renaissance artist Piero della Francesca depicts a thin, long-haired, bearded Savior, but he is posed against a lush green landscape more like the artist’s home in Tuscany than the hot, dry, rocky wilderness along the Jordan River.  Again, El Greco’s 16th century painting of Christ Carrying the Cross portrays a light-skinned, rather Spanish-looking Jesus.

Culture continues to shape our vision of Christ.  One of my favorite childhood memories is of a poster in my Sunday school classroom at Abington Presbyterian Church near Philadelphia.  It showed Jesus seated on a hilltop, surrounded by boys and girls in typical early 1950s garb.  Dressed in a flowing robe, our Lord had light Caucasian skin; a short, tidy beard; and long, light brown hair with nary a strand out of place.  I remember that our Lord was welcoming the children, but seemed less than enthusiastic.  A poster showing Jesus enjoying himself, or fighting a stiff wind with his hair blowing wildly, would not have been acceptable here because, rest assured, in those days there was little that was enjoyable, let alone wild, about Abington Presbyterian Church.

This poster may have been the work of Warner Sallman, the Chicago commercial artist whose three-quarter profile entitled Head of Christ is familiar to almost every Christian in America.  It was painted in 1940 at the request of some seminary students who urged Sallman to create a virile, manly Savior.  Sallman responded with a sepia-toned  portrait which has become iconic.  As David Morgan, an art historian then working at Valparaiso University, wrote in a 1996 book about Sallman, Head of Christ recalls “…the retouched studio photographs that replaced portrait painting in the late 19th Century.”  This image of Jesus could easily sit on the side table with photos of parents and grandparents!  In fact, printed on wallet sized card stock, Sallman’s painting was handed out by the USO and others to tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, and airmen as they headed off to World War II.  By the mid-1990s over 500 million copies of Head of Christ had been reproduced on church bulletin covers, funeral cards, buttons, bumper stickers, and — my favorites! — the “Inspira-Clock” and the “Inspira-Lamp.”

While his Head of Christ has been criticized as cultural and theological kitsch, for many Americans Warner Sallman has answered the question, “What did Jesus look like?”  He is in middle age; tall, lean, and emotionally reserved; with a short, tidy beard and long, slightly wavy hair, both medium brown with bright highlights;  and he has dark blue eyes, tall forehead, straight nose; and white skin.  Jesus looks almost Scandinavian — not surprising, since that was Sallman’s own ethnic background.

The more recent work of Richard Neave takes us in a different direction.  Neave is a forensic anthropologist retired from the University of Manchester in the U.K.  Forensic anthropologists help solve crimes by working with the skeletal remains of victims to reconstruct what they looked like in life.  In a December 2002 story in Popular Mechanics (of all publications!), and then later in a BBC special, Neave described his effort to determine what a typical 1st century Palestinian Jew — and therefore Jesus — might have looked like.  He carefully examined the skulls of three males who died at Jerusalem in about the 1st century, and compared the results with 1st century drawings from the area.  After creating a composite skull, Neave applied clay in the proper depth to mimic muscles and skin, added eyes, beard, and hair, and his “typical 1st century Jew” was complete.

As the images on the bulletin board out in the Narthex may show, people raised on Sallman’s Jesus may find Neave’s Jesus rather surprising.  Neaves contends that, as an average Jew, Jesus would have been just a couple inches over 5 feet in height; about 110 pounds in weight; with the stocky, muscular build of a laborer; dark eyes; and dark curly beard and dark hair, both cut short.  The natural olive tone of his skin would have been deepened by exposure to the sun and weathered by the wind.

For some, this “Jesus” is entirely too Semitic!  Add a keffiyeh, the head scarf typical of Arab males, and this rendering of Jesus may look too much like a cartoon version of a Mideast terrorist.  Yet if Jesus was so typical of his race, place, and day that Judas had to devise a special sign to identify him, then perhaps Neave’s Jew may be as close as we will ever come to answering the question, “What did Jesus look like?”

Now, at this point those in our Monday Bible study may wish to remind the preacher that Kathryn Roberts has cautioned us about attaching physical characteristics to God, for when we do so our vision of God becomes distorted and impoverished — and with it our vision of ourselves.  Thus, however interesting the question, “What did Jesus look like?” may seem, it is not only beyond our ability to answer, but more importantly, it is the wrong question to ask!  For us the issue is not “What did Jesus look like?” (past tense), but “What does Jesus look like?” (present tense).

Remember that our baptismal covenant requires that we seek and serve Christ in all persons. The point is that Christ indwells every human being, friend and stranger alike.  So if we wonder what Christ looked like in the year 10, but fail to wonder what Christ looks like in the year 2010, then our spiritual train has derailed.

So, what does Jesus look like?  Here’s my answer:

• He looks like the athletes who marched into the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics on Friday night, a cross-section of the human family.

• He looks like the athletes from Georgia, still in shock over the accidental death of their teammate on the luge course.

• He looks like young children in foster care, acting out their anger in kindergarten.

• Jesus looks like a divorced father, finally employed again after months without a job, whose petition for bankruptcy will soon be granted.

• He looks like a teacher or office worker or line worker who has not yet lost her job, but worries that she may.

• He looks like a lot of people in Congress, squabbling endlessly, but accomplishing little.

• Jesus looks like a woman who cannot afford to have her breast cancer properly treated because she has no health insurance.

• He looks like a member of a French search-and-rescue team, burrowing into a collapsed house in Haiti to recover a child whose leg will have to be amputated.

• Jesus looks like a Palestinian teenager, or an Israeli teenager, or a Nigerian teenager, or a Russian teenager, or an African-American teenager — all wondering if their futures hold any promise.

• He looks like an aged woman in Darfur who has been driven from her home by war and will probably die in a refugee camp.

• He looks like a Wall Street banker who this year will collect a multi-million dollar bonus, and then complain to his colleagues about how Washington spends the taxpayers’ money.

• He looks like someone cued up to receive free food at St. Patrick’s.

• Come to think about it, Jesus looks like you, gathered here to say your prayers, make your communion, share some coffee, and then go out into the world to make Christ known — to incarnate Jesus — in some small but significant way.

“What did Jesus look like?”  In the end, that question is of no importance.  “What does Jesus look like?”  By seeking an answer to that question you and I may catch a glimpse of “the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror” (2 Cor. 3:18) — by which St. Paul means in us.  It is by means of our disciple’s work, our sharing of the Master’s ministry, that we ourselves are being transformed into the same image beheld by Peter and John and James upon the mountain.  May we see Christ in others, and may they see the Lord in us.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year C, Last Epiphany: Lesson — Exodus 34:29-35  •  Gradual — Psalm 99  •  Epistle — 2 Corinthians 3:12—4:2  •  Gospel — Luke 9:28-43a

Collect for Last Epiphany:

O God, who before the passion of your only begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant o us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, February 7, 2010 (Year C, Epiphany 5)

[Jesus] got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. (Luke 5:3)

The vignette which provides this morning’s gospel reading is Luke’s version of the call of Simon Peter, James and John.  All four gospels agree that these three became disciples early in Jesus’ ministry, but they disagree on the details.  St. John says that Andrew encountered Jesus at or near the place where John the Baptist was working, and then brought his brother Simon Peter to the Lord.  St. Mark and St. Matthew say that Jesus called Peter and Andrew as he walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee (also known in scripture as the Lake of Gennesaret or Tiberias or Chinnereth), and then called the sons of Zebedee.  Luke also places this incident along the lakeshore, but his account is more elaborate.  This story also tells us how Luke’s community — and by extension, you and I — are likely to encounter the Lord.

We should note here that Jesus and Simon Peter probably knew — or knew of — each other before Jesus called him as a disciple.  Galilee is not a large place, and for 700 years before our Lord’s time the population of Galilee had been heavily Gentile.  The Jewish minority was almost certainly a close-knit community in which two tradesmen, a carpenter and a fisherman, would frequently cross paths.  That means Jesus is no stranger when he begins his Galilean ministry.  In fact, his rejection at Nazareth is due, at least in part, to the fact that people know him so well and are unable to accept him in a new role.  Moreover, Luke reports that shortly before today’s incident Jesus had cured Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever.  I assume, then, that Simon Peter at least knows Jesus’ reputation as a wonderworker, and the two may have been well acquainted.

That may explain why Simon Peter so readily agrees to let his boat be used as a teaching platform.  It is morning, Jesus is teaching at the lakeshore, and the people crowd in on him so heavily that they are about to push him into the water.  Meanwhile, Simon and his fellow fishermen have worked all night without anything to show for it and are now washing their nets.  Weary, they probably want to go home and get some rest.  I don’t suppose that Simon and his colleagues are overjoyed when Jesus indicates that he wants to use Simon’s boat.  Had it been someone else, some stranger, Simon might have declined.  But how can he say no to Jesus, who had so recently healed his mother-in-law?  Simon and his business partners James and John put out onto the lake again.

After teaching awhile, Jesus says to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” (Luke 5:4)  Now, the Simon Peter we meet in the Bible is an emotionally reactive and impulsive personality.  This morning he is tired.  He has just now finished washing the nets.  And this carpenter Jesus doesn’t know the first thing about fishing.  So I suspect Simon is not enthusiastic.  I hear a grudging tone as he says, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.  Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” (Luke 5:5)

As Luke tells us, the catch is so great that Simon must get the help of James and John to avoid breaking his nets.  Even then the quantity of fish is so great that the catch threatens to sink the boats.  Overwhelmed by this miracle — indeed, feeling at risk in the presence of such unexpected power — Simon pleads with Jesus to just go away and leave him alone. (Luke 5:8)  James and John are equally amazed.  Jesus reassures them all, saying, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” (Luke 5:10)  For Simon, James and John this is a life-changing experience.  A few minutes earlier they were mere fishermen.  Now they are disciples.

We could chalk this up as another gee-whiz miracle story.  However, we have to remember that the gospels are faith statements.  They speak not just to the problem of having faith, but to the more vexing problem of what to do with the faith you have!  Luke’s community experienced their resurrected Lord as a living spiritual reality who made claims on their lives.  When they said, “I believe,” it invited the question, “Now what?”  That same question has confronted every generation of Christians, including our own.  So what does Luke’s story of the calling of the first disciples tell us?

The first thing this story tells us is that Jesus is very inconvenient! Remember that Simon Peter and friends have just finished a long, fruitless night of backbreaking work when Jesus wanders by.  The last thing they need is more hours in the boat and more casting their nets.  I’m surprised Peter doesn’t tell Jesus (quite literally) to go jump in the lake!  Likewise, you and I are busy people.  We have family, work, school, and community responsibilities.  We’re also Christians, so we have spiritual responsibilities as well — prayers to say, services to attend, and meetings to keep our programs running and our roof from falling in.  And then along comes Jesus! — Mr. Inconvenient — asking for just a bit more of our time, talent, treasure, energy, creativity, and commitment.  “I have something else for you to do,” the Lord says to us, as if we need something else on top of everything else. But then, if Jesus waited until we had a free moment, he might wait a very long time.

In other words, it is the nature of Christ’s work to be an imposition upon our spiritual and material resources.  His ways are not our ways, and his work is not what we, left to our own devices, would probably choose to do.  Peter and his colleagues already had full lives; they didn’t need this.  But our Lord needed them.  And our Lord needs us.

Second, Jesus tells us to put out into deep water. As he instructs Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”  The fishermen most likely want to stay near shore, but that’s not Jesus’ plan for them, or for us.  Our Lord invites us to go where the risk is likely to be greater, but where the rewards may also be greater.

There’s a story, probably apocryphal, which speaks to this point.  A young boy kept falling out of bed every night.  Soon after his parents were asleep there would be a “thud” and much crying, and his parents would have to console him and put him back to bed.  And then, awhile later, there would be another “thud” as the process repeated itself.  His parents were at a loss on how to keep their son in bed all night.  Then the boy’s uncle came to visit.  That night, like all nights, there was a “thud” and the young man was on the floor again.  The next morning his uncle asked him why he kept falling out of bed.  The boy thought for awhile, and then said, “I don’t know.  Maybe I stay too close to where I got in.”

The same is true for us.  We want to remain close to shore, because we know the risks and we’re comfortable there.  To put out into deep water — to go places and do things that are unfamiliar or seem risky — can be a real challenge, but it can also bring rewards beyond our imagining.  For example, I think many of us expected St. John’s to call a new priest who was in many ways rather like Fr. Henry, only a bit younger.  That would have been an altogether understandable decision, a safe, close-to-shore choice.  But St. John’s put out into the deep water, let down our nets, and hauled in someone who does not fit the familiar, comfortable image of what a Rector should look or sound like.  In much the same way, each of us must, at least from time to time, put out into deep water.  If we always stay close to where we got in, the result will be just that predictable “thud” in the middle of the night.

Finally, few things can be as intimidating as God’s blessings. When Simon Peter and his friends hauled in the net, they were overwhelmed with the catch.  Luke’s community knew what that was like, for in just a few short years after the resurrection, the Christian Church had spread from one end of the Mediterranean Sea to the other and was starting to expand into every corner of the world.  As Paul reminded the Corinthians, “I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received….” (1 Cor. 15:3)  They, in turn, handed on that faith in Christ to others.  The resulting growth of the Church during the Apostolic period seems to us the greatest of blessings.  However, I wonder if Luke’s community felt entirely blessed to have new converts showing up week after week — a relentless flow of new people with new ideas and new needs, to which the existing church members had to respond.  Was their boat at risk of sinking under the weight of the catch?

Most Episcopal congregations pray that God will bless them with new members, but we usually do so without realizing how disconcerting growth can be.  You may imagine, for example, that St. John’s could add another 100 people worshiping on a Sunday, and the only change would be more people sitting in the Nave and more dollars in the offering plate.  Aside from that, we tell ourselves, St. John’s would be just the way it is now.  But people who study evangelism and church growth disagree.  In fact, they tell us that growth always changes a congregation, often in ways that long-time members find disturbing.  Just as in Luke’s time, new members arrive with new ideas and new needs to which the existing congregation must respond.

Another story:  New York City has always seen sudden, significant shifts in population among the boroughs, because New York is where so many immigrants wash ashore.  I’ve heard a number of delightful stories about Episcopal priests tending small, down-on-their-luck churches — clergy happily snoozing their way toward retirement — who suddenly find their neighborhoods awash in new arrivals from the Caribbean.  These new Americans, being 10th and 12th generation Anglicans, naturally head for the nearest Anglican (that is, Episcopal) church — and Fr. Snooze becomes Fr. Frantic!  In short, adding 50 or 100 new members is about the most disruptive thing you can do to a congregation.  All those fish may swamp your boat!

So, here we are — stuck with our inconvenient Lord who sometimes asks us to put out into deep water, and sometimes requires that we haul in an overwhelming catch of blessings.  That’s life in the Church!  We have to remember that God has a long-standing habit of making burdensome, and sometimes even perfectly outrageous demands on those who love him.  God did so to Abraham and Sarah… to the prophet Isaiah… to the Blessed Virgin Mary… and to Simon Peter, James, John, Mary Magdalene, and the other disciples.  God did so to Paul of Tarsus.  And God has has been just as inconvenient and demanding to Christians of every stripe and color, in every age, by inviting them to become “fishers of people.”

So why should the Lord treat us any differently?  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year C, Epiphany 5: Lesson — Isaiah 6:1-13  •  Gradual — Psalm 138  •  Epistle — 1 Corinthians 15:1-11  •  Gospel — Luke 5:1-11

Collect for Epiphany 5:

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.