Beyond the Binary

PROPERS:          6 EPIPHANY, YEAR A

TEXT:                 MATTHEW 5:21-37

PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2020.

ONE SENTENCE:        The Christian faith is more complicated – and more gracious – than binary choices.

                                    

            I grew up an Ole Miss fan.  There, I said it.

            But that is not who I am.  Though, it is who I was.

            I have told friends for years that part of my spiritual awakening was being healed of football.  And, boy, did I need it.

            In years past, I would be a basket case on football weekends.  I still say to this day – with tongue planted firmly in cheek – that the darkest day in my life was October 17, 1970.

            That was the day that my undefeated, fourth-ranked, beloved Ole Miss Rebels – with Heisman Trophy candidate Archie Manning at the helm – were defeated by Southern Mississippi at Hemingway Stadium in Oxford.  Little Willie Heidelburg, scatback from Southern and, ironically, the only black player on the field, scored touchdowns on two double-reverses to lead the Golden Eagles to a 30-14 victory.

            No, I don’t remember those specifics…

            It was downhill from there.  Legendary Coach John Vaught had a heart attack that week.  Archie Manning broke his arm the next week.  It did not bode well for the future.

            Through my years at Ole Miss, our football team was awful.  And I was miserable.  The misery continued afterwards – in the years following.

\           If Nora was here today she would verify what am anxious wretch I was.  On weekends when Ole Miss played football, I was wound tight as a tick.  When we lost – which was frequently – I would be sullen the entire weekend.

            My viewpoint of life and college football was binary, dualistic – Ole Miss was good, everything else was not good.  Binary. Either/or.

+ + + 

            You know it.  Sadly, our culture has become binary, too.  Either you’re fur us or agin’ us.

            It is seen most clearly in our politics.  And in social media, too.  Lines are being drawn.  You are on one side or the other.  There is no in-between.

            We’ve seen it in the church in the last two decades.  Thankfully, we have largely emerged from that chapter.  We have grown more tolerant of one another – by and large.

            Culture is another thing, though.  We see the divisions daily.  They are exemplified by the television channels we watch.  The fabric of society is stretched, and it is about to be torn asunder. There is a demand for winners and losers – a zero-sum game.

            What does the church have to say?  What does the gospel have to say?

+ + + 

            Going back to the early roots of the church, we come across one of the first heresies – Gnosticism.  It was characterized by the definition of its name – secret knowledge.  One of its other tendencies was a focus on dualism – something was either all good or all bad.

            Gnostics saw matter – flesh and the world -- as evil, and spirit as good. Christians saw creation as good, but as corrupted. Hence, the Incarnation – Christ coming in human form to redeem creation. The Gnostics saw our embodiment itself as evil, and that the essential spirit represented the sole good present in creation.

            For example, the Gnostics saw the pursuit of the spiritual quest to be far superior to Christian ministry, such as feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, comforting the grieving, and other ministries to which Jesus calls us. The binary contention was this:  the inner was good; the outer, not so.

            In reality, the truth can be found in both/and and not in either/or.

+ + + 

            To put the matter in a secular context, I would quote the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

            That was an important lesson I had to learn.  My passion for Ole Miss football was the petri dish for my spiritual transformation.  I came, by a gift of grace, to see life as more complex – more in shades of grey than in all black and white. And that did not make things simpler.  In fact, life became more complicated.

+ + + 

            The faithful people of Jesus’ day, if they wished, were free to follow the details of the Law – the black and white specifics of Torah, the ancient law of Moses.  In broad strokes, it was very clear.  There was little doubt about major issues.  The Law was authoritative.  It was to be followed faithfully.

            But, there was some thought beyond that fundamental approach. As an example, the Pharisees were experts in the Law.  And they were focused on applying it to every aspect of life.  They, too, saw that there were grey areas – areas of doubt, areas of confusion, areas of dispute – which needed to be addressed.

            There were various avenues for interpreting Torah.  They included Peshat, Remez, Drush, and Sod.

            Jesus seeks to be clear about the complexity of God’s Law in today’s gospel. If there is a supposition that Jesus released us from the demands of the Law, these words will disabuse us from that mistaken notion.

            Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

            And he goes on.  He does not let us off the hook.  Keep in mind that this passage is within the Sermon on the Mount, and comes only a few verses after the Beatitudes – the words of comfort for common men and women, like you and I, who listened to him that day.

            His words remind us, as Scott Peck wrote in his book, The Road Less Traveled, that Life is difficult. It iscomplex and resists the temptation to place everything in a box, or see all of life as black or white.

            Jesus is telling us: The heart is the core of our lives. It discloses our motivations. A heart that is hard, will deal with complex matters in a firm, brittle way.  A heart that is both spirit and flesh will see issues and people with nuance, grace, and gentleness.

            Our lives are not characterized by simple, binary choices, but call us to a spirit-filled approach to people and to circumstances.

A Different Perspective

PROPERS:          PRESENTATION OF OUR LORD, YEAR A    

TEXT:                 LUKE 2:22-40

PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2020.

ONE SENTENCE:        The apex of the Christian perspective is to see God’s                                           hand in all things.         

                                    

            Today is one of the Holy Days in the Church Year – the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple.

            What is that, you might ask. It starts with the fact that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were Jews.  As faithful, observant, and practicing Jews of that day, they followed the practice of presenting their forty-day-old infant in the Temple. The rite was for his official induction into the Jewish faith, and to complete the ritual purification of Mary after the birth.  Keep in mind that first-born males were designated to God.

            Mary and Joseph were poor.  As poor people, they offered the ritual sacrifice of two turtle doves.  A wealthy person would have offered a lamb.

            We could talk about the ritual significance of this moment.  But I want us to focus on two persons who make brief but important Cameo appearances in Luke’s gospel in this passage:  Simeon and Anna.

            Both were elderly.  They had lived long lives of dedication in the Temple.  The Temple, of course, was the massive edifice that was the central place of worship to all Jews.  Wherever Jews lived in the world, they directed their prayers toward the Temple.  It was described as one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.

            It bore witness to the engineering genius of the tyrant king, Herod.  It succeeded the previous Temple, built by Solomon, and destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 B. C.  The Temple was the center of life, faith, and activity – rising in the heart, and highest point, of the walled city.

            Simeon and Anna devoted their lives to service in the Temple.  Simeon had received assurance that he would not die before he saw the Lord’s anointed one – the one who would deliver Israel.  Anna, 84 years of age, lived in the Temple – always dedicated to prayer and fasting.

            We can only speculate what their previous years had been like.

            Keep in mind that they were a people – Jews – whose history to that point could be characterized by slavery, deliverance, war, defeat, captivity, and conquest by neighboring powers.

            Simeon and Anna almost certainly lived a simple, monastic-like existence.  They knew no frills or luxuries.  They lived a spartan existence.  If they were fortunate, they would have shared in the priest’s portions from the sacrifices in the Temple.

            They lived under shadows – the shadow of Herod and his successors, and the shadow of Rome.  Perhaps the closest analogy we could make would be life in an Eastern Block country during the days before the fall of the Iron Curtain.  Cruel leaders overseen by distant tyrants. What freedoms they knew were limited, and their beloved Temple was always under the watchful eye of Rome.

            We know little of Simeon’s background.  We know more about Anna.  She lived with her husband for seven years (probably until her early-to-mid 20s), after which she was widowed.  She began her service in the Temple then.  She may have been in the Temple for 60 years.

            But I think we can speculate that their lives had been meager, challenging, and anything but easy.

            Yet, here they were: open, receptive, and hopeful.  Their eyes of faith were bright.

+ + + 

            Years ago, I would travel to Grand Coteau, Louisiana, for silent retreats.  There is a wonderful Jesuit Spirituality Center there.  The monastic brothers and sisters there welcomed and warmly hosted people seeking retreat time.

            Each retreatant would be assigned a spiritual director for the duration of the stay.  We would meet with the director an hour each day – to be guided in prayers, to share our journey, to seek insights, to find God’s movement in our lives.

            One of my directors once observed to me: “All life is a blessing.” Not just the good stuff, but all life.

            I thought, “That’s a simplistic view… easy for someone who lives in a monastic community.”  How did one reconcile that perspective with Cambodia under Pol Pot, Auschwitz and the Holocaust, or pediatric cancer wards?

            I even thought back on my life – the bitter experiences, the pain, the depression, the anxiety, the broken relationships – and thought, as if…

            All life is a blessing? No, that was not my perspective.  How could someone say that?  How could that be a perspective?  Life is difficult… and much more so for many others.  I could not preach that mindless perspective to my congregants.

            So, I just put that approach out of my mind.  And the years went on…

+ + + 

            Years went by, and I lived my life.

            Then, as I matured – in other words, got older – I found myself looking back, reflecting on life.  Life and distance changes one’s perspective. I was reminded of the poem by the Jesuit priest named Anthony DeMello.  It was called, The River.  It had nothing to do with a river, except maybe the river of time and perspective.

            DeMello’s poem took me to a place billions of miles into space and millions of years into the future – to look back; to gain a more detached perspective. In looking back, I saw the insignificance of my personal travails – and the poet’s refrain was “This, too, shall pass.”

            The years, the experience, the wisdom, and the poem -- they changed the way I viewed life. 

            Now, I am thankful for my life.  I can see how each experience, each relationship, each personal failure, each disappointment had led me to this precise moment in life.  

            It is because of each of those that I stand before you.  It is because of each experience that I am the person I am today. I can see how those experiences – good, bad or indifferent – molded and formed my life. Not perfect, by any means, but blessed beyond measure. And deeply grateful.

            To be clear, I am not saying that traumatic events in life do not hurt.  I am not volunteering for any bitter experiences.  I am not advocating some Pollyanna view of the world.

            And I admit:  I must stand silent in bringing meaning and purpose out of events such as the Holocaust.  If Elie Wiesel cannot bring meaning, I certainly can’t.

            I am saying that God can move through our lives. Depending on our openness, he can redeem the losses that we sustain and bring about new life where there appears to be none. And when we have moved beyond those losses, we can once again be grateful for the gift of life itself.

+ + + 

            Anna, the elderly prophetess, and Simeon, lived faithful lives.  They remained open to the potential that they would see a transcendent blessing in their lives.

            They, too, had probably seen and known bitter losses and experiences.  And at the end, they were able to see the hand of God in all that they had known.  They praised God in words that have echoed through the millennia.

A Very Simple Message

PROPERS:         HOLY MATRIMONY           

TEXT:                 JOHN 15:9-12

PREACHED AT BLESSING OF THE MARRIAGE OF SUSAN SMITH AND DICK SMITH AT TRINITY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, FLORENCE, ALABAMA, ON SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 2020.

ONE SENTENCE:        The message of this moment is essentially simple – love one another as God loves us.

                                    

            What a blessing and honor it is for each of us to be here today.  Susan and Dick, we celebrate with you on this day which highlights true joy.

            It is so tempting for the preacher to approach this moment and to feel compelled to say something that is profound, insightful, or deeply thought-provoking.

            That is not my task.  I promised Susan this would not be a stem-winder.  After all, no one came here to see the priest preach.

            The core message of this moment is really very simple.  We hear it in Jesus words from the gospel lesson:

 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.  If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

            These are John’s recollection of Jesus’ words.  They express something we have heard so many times that they have become all-too-familiar.  But they remind us of the sacramental nature of this moment.  In other words, this time together – the recognition and blessing of Susan and Dick’s marriage -- is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.

            First, Jesus tells us that God loves us.  This is the love of a tender and merciful God, not an angry and vengeful God.  This is God that encourages us to cobble together joy and meaning out of the most challenging of circumstances. His love is to give meaning to life – to transform the pain of the cross to the unspeakable joy of an empty tomb.

            Then, God goes one step further.  He tells us to love one another.  We are to represent God’s love in our relationships with others.  Notice – we are not to tolerate others, or to suffer fools gladly.  We are to love one another as God loves us.

            That loves reaches its apex in a moment such as this – when Susan and Dick embark on a journey of love together.  Their love is founded in the love which they experience – whether they are aware of it or not at a particular moment – in the bonds of matrimony.

            As they live into the promises they make here – with us as witnesses – they emulate the love that Jesus shows to his followers and the entire world.  By that love, they evidence a sign of hope so yearned for in this world.

Opening to the Light

PROPERS:          2 EPIPHANY, YEAR A

TEXT:                 COLLECT OF THE DAY; PSALM 40:1-12               

PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 19, 2020.

ONE SENTENCE:        The light which is characteristic of Epiphany casts                                              shadows in our lives which are to be brought into the light, offered to God, and healed.       

                                    

            In these days after Christmas, we hear much about light.

            In the gospel lesson on the First Sunday of Christmas, we heard the prologue to the Gospel according to John.  It included these words: “What has come into being is life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

            In the Feast of the Epiphany, we hear the story of the three magi being guided to the newborn savior by a star in the heavens.  And today, in the collect, we prayed, “Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world…”

            We would agree, I think, that the light is what we seek.  And that light, in general, is healing and renewing.  Light illumines. Especially, as Christians, the light of Jesus. 

            We seek to bring to light those things which fester, corrupt, or damage.  Appropriate light will help heal damaged skin.  Light is something we seek.

            But light does something else.  We hardly consider its effects, because we so want to avoid what it does.  

            Light casts shadows.

            I recall a game we used to play at my grandmother’s house in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.  She had a two-story house that her mother had ordered from Sears-Roebuck.  Yes, they used to sell houses! It was old and spooky.

            We would creep down the inside stairs at night, when all was dark.  We would reach quietly around the corner and press the button which turned the lights on in the kitchen.  Then we would giggle as the various creatures of the night would scurry for the darkness. The floor would move!

            There are events, moments, relationships in life which we seek to keep in darkness. We keep them hidden – maybe even from ourselves.  They are those things in life of which we are ashamed – or at least not proud of.

            Perhaps it is not something we are aware of.  Carl Jung, the great psychological theorist, wrote of the shadow.  It is the aspect of ourselves and our personalities that we keep in the darkness – ignored, hidden, and denied.  We may not even be conscious of it, but, rest assured, it is there for all of us.

            My dear friend, Merrill Wade, who is a retired priest in Texas, once spoke to me of the “dark, unbaptized corners of our hearts.” The light cannot reach those hidden parts – they remain unaffected by the healing powers of the light.Theologically, he was spot-on with human nature and with Carl Jung.

            We tend to ignore that aspect of ourselves.  As a result, there is a tendency to have those hidden, unhealed shadows affect our lives.  That inaccessibility of the light – the fact that the tendencies function from the darkness -- leads to behaviors or actions which separate us from our own best interests, one another, and the fullness of life for which we yearn.  The shadow affects our actions and we are not even aware – the tendency is so hidden from the light.

            But we are not helpless.  The shadow does not have to remain in the darkness.  Consider the victorious words of one who was touched by God – the author of Psalm 40:

 ¹I waited patiently upon the Lord; * 
he stooped to me and heard my cry.

² He lifted me out of the desolate pit, out of the mire and clay; * 
he set my feet upon a high cliff and made my footing sure.

³ He put a new song in my mouth, 
a song of praise to our God; * 
many shall see, and stand in awe, 
and put their trust in the Lord.

⁴ Happy are they who trust in the Lord! * 
they do not resort to evil spirits or turn to false gods.

⁵ Great things are they that you have done, O Lord my God! 
how great your wonders and your plans for us! * 
there is none who can be compared with you.

⁶ Oh, that I could make them known and tell them! * 
but they are more than I can count.

            We can only theorize or speculate on what the psalmist had experienced – the precise nature of the desolate pit.  But I suspect he did not get there overnight, nor did he get out of it overnight.  Many, if not most, times, the work of the Spirit takes time.

            We may seek to do what is right, but we cannot.  The Apostle Paul puts that plaintive cry so succinctly: “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing." [Romans 7:18b-19] 

            And, so it is with the shadow – the hidden part of ourselves that is our desolate pit. To emerge from the muck and the mire that weighs us down, we need to turn inward.  We need to inspect our feelings, our motivations, our actions and then bring them to the light.

            Once we have exposed the unbaptized corners of our hearts to the light which Christ brings, we are freed from the control it lorded over us from the dark recesses of our souls.  In fact, we share in Christ’s victory over the forces of darkness and we become more whole through that healing light.

            It takes time, though – and rigorous self-examination.  We need to turn an unblinking eye within, and listen with unguarded ears to those who would help us find the light.

            And when we come to the power of the light, we will have found our Epiphany.

The Rest of the Story

PROPERS:          1 EPIPHANY: THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD         

TEXT:                 MATTHEW 3:13-17

PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 2020.

SUMMARY:       Baptism is the full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body, the Church.  The bond established by God in baptism is indissoluble. 

                                    

PREACHED EXTEMPORANEOUSLY

            Today is one of the great baptismal feast days of the church year – the First Sunday after the Epiphany, also known as the Baptism of Our Lord.

            Today is a fitting day for Holy Baptism – along with the Easter Vigil, Pentecost. the Sunday after All Saints’, and any day on which the Bishop visits. It is the reason we will renew our baptismal vows in a few moments.

            Baptism did not rise ex nihilo in the early church.  It had been around for many years.  Before it became one of the dominical sacraments – that is, a sacrament instituted by Christ – it had two major threads.

            The first was Baptism of Conversion.  It was a practice used by biblical-era Jews to initiate catechumens – Gentiles studying to join the Jewish faith – into the body of faithful people.  Converts would typically study the Jewish faith and, when adequately prepared, would receive the baptism of conversion.

            Conversion into the Jewish faith – the early thread.

            Then came John the Baptism – a “wild ass of a man”, wearing a leather girdle and eating locusts and wild honey.  He lived, preached, ministered and baptized in the arid desert-like area along the Jordan River in the Judean Wilderness.

            John offered something different.  Something different from the baptism of conversion.  He offered baptism to faithful Jews – offering baptism for the repentance and forgiveness of sins.  People of the covenant community would undergo baptism to cleanse them of their sins.

            Now, of course, that raises the question of why Jesus received baptism.  And as you heard in today’s gospel, John said that he needed to be baptized by Jesus.  Jesus demurred:  We must do this to fulfill all righteousness.

            So, there you have it.  Any other questions would be met with silence – part of the divine mystery.

            So, we have two threads in baptism now – conversion into the community of faith, and for the repentance and forgiveness of sins.  But there’s more…

            We Episcopalians believe that praying shapes believing and that our beliefs can be found in our liturgy, our Book of Common Prayer.  That is certainly true in our theology of baptism.

            Turn to page 306 in the Book of Common Prayer.  There you will find one of the most beautiful and theologically-profound prayers in all the prayer book – the Thanksgiving Over the Water.  I love this prayer.  It says so much in so few words.

            Listen anew to it:

We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water.
Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of creation.
Through it you led the children of Israel out of their bondage
in Egypt into the land of promise. In it your Son Jesus
received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy
Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us, through his death
and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.

We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are
buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his
resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.
Therefore in joyful obedience to your Son, we bring into his fellowship those who come to him in faith, baptizing them in
the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

            There’s a lot of meat there – a lot of substantive imagery.  It tells us a lot about our theology of baptism.

            First, we are told about God’s movement in creation.  Then we refer to God’s saving action by bringing the people of Israel out of captivity in Egypt, through the waters of the Red Sea, into the Promised Land. And then we are reminded of Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan River.

            Then we are told of how all this matters to us.  Going down into the waters of baptism, we going down into the grave with Jesus and when we come out water, we are rising with Jesus in his resurrection.  We have died with Jesus, and we have risen with him – under the movement of the Holy Spirit..  We enter new life.

            So, in addition to the conversion aspect of baptism and the repentance and forgiveness of sins, we add other elements to our understanding of baptism.  We are made new creatures, as in God’s movement in creation.  We are delivered, as through the Red Sea.  And we share in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

            Those are remarkable and profound meanings for a simple liturgical act – a simple act which has life-long and even eternal consequences.

            Yet, there is one additional aspect to baptism that I want to emphasize today.  It is found in the rubrics on page 298 in the Book of Common Prayer – the very first paragraph:

“Holy Baptism is the full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the Church.  The bond established by God in Baptism is indissoluble.”

            Note these tenets of the Church’s teaching about Baptism:

·      It is the complete initiation into the Church; not partial.  Nothing else needs to be done to complete it.  It is the work of water and the Holy Spirit, and not something we do.

·      The bond established by God in Baptism is indissoluble.  In other words, God establishes the bond.  It is God that moves first.  It is something which God does.  And the bond which is established cannot be dissolved.  Once we have become children of God, we are always God’s child.  Nothing we do or say can separate us from that love.

            The act of Baptism seems so simple, so straightforward. It has so much meaning beyond the apparent.

            Now you know the rest of the story.