This was one of those weeks that preachers love to hate…  It is wonderful when the spirit strikes but it sure would be nice if it didn’t wait until Saturday night.

I thought I was finished with this sermon on Thursday but on Saturday it was broken open, maybe even shattered, by a sudden insight and inspiration.  I went to bed thinking I had it under control and ready to go but on Sunday morning the revelation continued.  I was still struggling to put all the pieces together when I delivered it at the 8 am service.  It went a little more smoothly at the 10:30 service but was still evolving.

This text is a further refinement of the recording of the sermon I delivered at the 10:30 service on February 14th, the first Sunday in Lent 2016 at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Madison, Wisconsin.

It is built on the readings for the First Sunday in Lent in Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.

You can find those readings here.

“After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:1).

“Full of the Holy Spirit.” Just imagine how full he was! He goes to the river Jordan where he is baptized. And the Holy Spirit descends upon him in bodily form like a dove; and he hears these words,

“You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22).

If that’s not enough to fill you with the Holy Spirit I don’t know what is!   So here is, glowing, absolutely glowing with the Holy Spirit and he walks into the wilderness where the devil is waiting for him. Now this probably presents somewhat of a problem for the devil. You can’t have the Son of God, the Beloved, the one with whom God is well pleased wandering around so full of himself. And so the devil steps in to try and take care of this difficulty.

Luke tells us that Jesus is out there for 40 days being tempted by the devil but then Luke says,

He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished (Luke 4:2).

He hasn’t eaten for forty days and then the devil shows up to tempt them with these three questions. So he’s vulnerable. He’s tired, hungry. He’s famished.  If you are looking to attack someone then that’s the time to do it.  Right?  So the devil shows up and says,

‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread’ (Luke 4:3).

And Jesus says

‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone” ’ (Luke 4:4).

And the devil has to move on to plan B…

It seems in this first exchange there is a temptation and there is a response tells the devil that this line of attack isn’t going to work.

What is the temptation? It’s hard to figure that out. Is the devil saying “Display your magical powers. Subvert the laws of nature and change the stone into bread?” Is the devil saying, “Feed yourself. I know you’re famished. You are hungry. If you are the Son of God you can do it. God wouldn’t want you to suffer… Take care of yourself. Just wave your hands and meet your own needs…”

I think we find our answer about the temptation in Jesus’s response.

“It is written ‘One does not live by bread alone…’” (Luke 4:4).

That’s what we hear, but it’s almost like Jesus is speaking in shorthand. Jesus has only quoted half of a verse from the book of Deuteronomy here. His listeners, Luke’s audience would have know how to complete that sentence…

“One does not live by bread alone, but from every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3).

So how does this shed light on the devil’s temptation? Think about this for a minute…

Jesus has been to the river Jordan and he’s received this “word,” “You are my Son the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

In that moment his identity, and his vocation, his “belovedness” is established… And the devil, and the word devil, by the way, means “the slanderer” or “false accuser,” is trying to undermine that sense, that understanding, that identity that Jesus has received in that word.

So he says, “prove it!” “Prove it”? The devil knows who Jesus is! The devil doesn’t need any proof!   What the devil is doing, what the slanderer, the accuser is doing in this moment, is trying to sow some doubt. “If you really are… prove it to yourself… that you are the Son of God.”

Jesus responds, “I don’t need to do that because I am fed, I live on the word of God which I just received in my baptism. My identity is secure. I know that I am beloved.

So the devil tries again… Oh, okay don’t really believe it huh? Not willing to change this stone to bread…” still trying to sow that doubt… “because I tell you what. Let me give you something more concrete… Worship me and I will give you all of this, authority over all the world.”

Jesus response to him

“It is written, ’Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him’” (Luke 4:8).

Again, Jesus answers with a quote from the book of Deuteronomy. This time it’s from chapter 6 where Moses is speaking to the people of Israel, giving them God’s instructions. He tells them “once you arrive in the promised land, the land of Cana, remember who brought you and don’t go after other gods, the gods of the people who live there. But worship only the Lord your God.

Jesus recognizes what’s happening. The devil is asking him to redefine himself, not as God, not as God’s beloved, but as the slanderer’s, the accuser’s, as one who belongs to the devil. Jesus declines.

One more time the devil attempts to tempt Jesus. He takes him to the highest tower on the Temple and says, “Throw yourself off. If you are who you say you are… prove it prove it to me and prove it to yourself.”

Once again Jesus quotes the book of Deuteronomy chapter 6.

“It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’” (Luke 4:12).

Jesus is speaking in shorthand again. This is only half the verse and while the rest of the story might not come immediately to mind for us today, it certainly would have for Jesus’ followers or Luke’s audience. The full line from Deuteronomy reads:

“Do not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah” (Deuteronomy 6:16).

“Massah”? Jesus’ followers and Luke’s audience would have known this reference right away. This time we are directed to the book of Exodus. Moses is leading the people in the wilderness and they are ready to stone him because there is no water. He strikes the rock with his staff, water comes out and,

“He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not’” (Exodus 17:7)?

There in the desert, in the wilderness, the people of Israel were asking, “are we really beloved of God? Is God really here with us in the wilderness?”

Jesus’s response to the devil is saying, “don’t put the Lord your God to the test in the wilderness by demanding evidence that he is there with you and that you are beloved.”

Well the devil apparently understands the Old Testament Scriptures, the Scriptures of the people of Israel, because this response does him in, and he leaves until an opportune time.

Jesus makes his way into the wilderness full of the Holy Spirit and he survives this time in the wilderness, these temptations, this trial, by refusing to let go of the word that he received in his baptism, by refusing to let go of his identity, by refusing to relinquish the truth that he is the Beloved, the Son of God with whom God is well pleased.   He goes into the wilderness “full of the Holy Spirit.” Luke tells us that he comes out of the wilderness

“…filled with the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14).

During that trial, his time of testing and temptation in the wilderness, by claiming his identity and refusing to let it go, Jesus grows.

Every year on the first Sunday of Lent we hear this story of Jesus in the wilderness.   In this season we are called to a time of self reflection and examination. Lent is a time when we are asked to look within ourselves for the places, the times, and the ways in which we distance ourselves from the God who loves us, and from the God with whom we long to be in relationship. Every year during this season we are asked to do this difficult work so that when we arrive at Easter we might start again, setting aside some of the barriers that are of our own making and, come even closer to the God who loves us.

The wilderness is a dangerous place because when you’re in the wilderness the slanderer, the accuser is always close at hand, ready to try and steal away from you what you know, the word given you at your baptism.

A couple of weeks ago, when we celebrated the feast of the Baptism of our Lord we rejoiced in the fact that we participate in Jesus’s baptism and that the words spoken to him are also spoken to us.   When mother Dorota and I, at the peace, walked up and down the aisles with those branches and splashed water on people and said, “You are beloved. You are beloved,” everyone in this room was glowing, full of the Holy Spirit. That truth and that identity is something that fills us up and can light the whole world.

Here in the wilderness, when we’re examining the places where we’ve fallen short, the accuser will be standing there on our shoulder whispering, “Really? Prove it! Prove it!”  The accuser will be trying to sow doubt, trying to get us to relax our grip on that truth, in that identity, in that word; trying to steal it away from us… But maybe… maybe stealing is the wrong verb. That word on which we live, that feeds us in the wilderness can’t be taken from us unless we open our hands and let it go. So maybe the accuser, the slanderer is trying to trick us into giving it away! Here in the wilderness we need to remember who we are whose we are.

Last week I stood in this place and I invited us to add one practice to the practices suggested in the Invitation to the Observance of Holy Lent found in our Ash Wednesday liturgy. I suggested that this might be a good season for us all to listen, to work really hard to quiet the internal noise, to separate ourselves from the noise around us, and to sit quietly, attentively, patiently waiting for what God has to say to us. That is the way to be with Jesus in the wilderness; vulnerable, open, and ready to hear.   But we need to make sure that we remember who we are in case the accuser starts to whisper his little nothings in our ear.

So here’s a way to safeguard yourself, to prepare yourself for that listening. Whether you’re sitting in the perfect chair with the speakers positioned exactly right so you can hear the music that God is playing… Whether you’re sitting somewhere else trying to quiet the noise… Do this first.

Take a deep breath in, and while you breathe in pray, “I am a beloved child of God.”   Then as you let that breath out, let your body relax. Feel the tension drain from your shoulders and your neck. Feel yourself sink into that truth; “I am a beloved child of God.” Feel yourself relaxing into the embrace of the God who loves you.

Any time in this season when we’re doing this holy work, this work of self reflection and examination, when the accuser rears his ugly head and begins to whisper in our ear that we are unworthy, that we are unlovable, take that deep breath again. Claim the word, the identity, given to you at your baptism. Cling to it. Because if we can do that we will come out on the other side of this wilderness, into the light of Easter, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, having grown in the love of God.

Amen

This sermon, offered on February 7, 2016 at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church by the Very Rev. Andy Jones, is built around the readings for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany in Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.

You can find those readings here

My brother-in-law Scott, my sister Julie’s husband, is one of those lucky people who managed to turn his hobby, his avocation, into a job or a vocation. Scott writes reviews of high-end stereo equipment for an audiophile magazine, and companies all over the world send him this incredibly expensive equipment to test, to try out, to review, and to write about. Sometimes those companies want that equipment back and sometimes they don’t. So the last time I was at his house, and I was looking at this rack of stereo equipment that was just unbelievable, I started to lament the fact that when I was younger the first thing I did any time I moved was to set up my stereo. Great big speakers, a turntable, a tape deck, a receiver, an amplifier… all that equipment got put together before I even unpacked my bed. It was so important to me to have that stuff put together. And now when I want to listen to music I grab my iPhone in my little Bluetooth speaker that I carry around the house and I listen to music from little box that’s about that big…

Scott looked at me and said, “Well, lets talk about that for a minute. Andy when was the last time you sat down to listen to music?” I’m a musician. I listen to music all the time. He said “No, no. I don’t mean having music playing in the background while you’re making dinner, or folding the laundry, or doing something else. I’m talking about sitting down with no other intention than to listen to music.” I thought about that for a minute and it was true. When I had all of that stereo equipment I had a chair that was placed in just the right spot so I got the full stereo effect from my speakers and I would sit there for hours sometimes… just listening, just listening. The more I thought about that the more I recognize I was missing something.

When I was an undergraduate music student at Juniata College I took classes that taught me how to listen; that taught me what to listen for, how to appreciate what I was hearing, ways to anticipate, to remember, ways to incorporate what I was hearing into a larger pattern and scheme so did it all made sense. And the more I thought about it the more I realized that listening is an art in and of itself.   And it’s something that we can be taught. It is a skill that we can acquire.

Now if you’re wondering if that’s really true, is listening an art, I invite you to think for a minute about the last time you were with someone who had the gift of listening. People like that help us to understand or to know that we have their full attention, that they’re anxious to hear what we have to say, that they believe we have something to contribute to their understanding of the world, and they’re curious about who we are and what we think, believe, and feel. People with the gift of listening are a gift in and of themselves.

Think for a minute about the other side of that equation; people who step on you before you finish saying something; who can’t wait to hear what you’ve got to say because they’ve already figured it out, or they’ve anticipated what you’re going to say and so the jump in and respond before you’re done. Or maybe people who are so anxious to prove how bright they are in how much they know about the subject that they don’t let you finish what you’re saying before they start adding their brilliant and highly erudite points to the conversation.   And then, there’s the even worse case, people who clearly either don’t care don’t want to hear what you have to say. So they step on you. When you’re with people like that you sometimes just want to shake them and say “Listen to me! Listen!

“Listen,” that’s the rebuke that Peter got this morning in our Gospel reading. Jesus has just been transformed into his glory here on the mountain with Moses and Elijah their clothes transformed to dazzling white and before Moses and Elijah had even left… Peter has jumped in and said “Lord is good that we’re here! Let us build three booths, one for each of you, and we can just stay right here on this mountaintop.”

Peter thinks he knows what Jesus is about to say. He thinks he knows how this is supposed to play out. He’s got it all figured out so he’s not even going to let Jesus start to debrief this experience, or explain what happened, he’s just going to jump right in there with his in plan.

Peter, just a few verses ago, was the one who finally said to Jesus you are the Messiah of God. Jesus asked,

“‘Who do the crowds say that I am?’ They answered, ‘John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered, ‘The Messiah of God’” (Luke 9:18-20).

Peter was the star pupil! Jumped right to the head of the class. Maybe Peter has stepped on Jesus, not allowing him to speak because he assumes that his vision of the “Messiah of God” is right on track. Or maybe he’s not giving Jesus a chance to speak here because he wants to maintain that star status. He’s jumping in with what he is sure is the right answer so Jesus knows just how smart he is.

Or maybe… maybe Peter doesn’t really want to hear what Jesus has to say because just after Peter identified Jesus as the Messiah of God Jesus told them that

‘The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Luke 9:22).

So maybe Peter doesn’t want to hear any more conversation about

“…his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31).

Anyway, no matter what the reason, Peter has failed to listen. He’s interjected himself into a moment where he might have learned something and been transformed and changed by Jesus’s half of the conversation. And so he draws that rebuke.

“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” (Luke 9:35)

If my brother-in-law Scott, a trained and gifted listener, who by the way this past September entered seminary, and the question that he asked me two years ago “When he was the last time you down to listen to music?” comes back to my mind here in this moment. I think that if he were here this morning listening to all this, because I’ve now led him right to this spot (right?), might ask a different question… “When was the last time you sat down to listen to God? When was the last time you sent down to listen to Jesus; not just as part of the background noise, not just to keep your head from wandering into dark places while you’re washing the dishes or making dinner… but sat down intentionally to listen; in the chair that’s in exactly the right spot to get the sound from both speakers so that when God’s speaks you get the full color, texture, and tone of what it is that God is saying?”

Listening is an art. It’s a skill that we can acquire. It’s something that we can train ourselves to do. So here are a couple of things that might help, things that we’ve explored a little bit already.

Sitting down in that chair ready to listen to God don’t imagine that you already know what God is going to say. Don’t jump in to finish God’s sentences. When God starts to speak sit and listen. Know that God has something to add that’s more valuable than what you’re ready to interject in that moment.

Don’t when you sit down in that chair, carefully positioned so that you can hear what God is saying, don’t try to be the star pupil. Don’t jump in and start to explain to God how good you are, or how well you’ve done, or how much you know from all of the theological texts you’ve read, or about your study of the scripture that week. Sit quietly and let God speak first.

And then third, make sure that you really do want to hear what it is that God has to say. God doesn’t always say things that are easy to hear. God doesn’t always say things that we necessarily want to hear. But when God speaks there is the the possibility that we will be transformed, just as Jesus was there on that mountain top, so that we can show forth God’s glory and light and love in the world.

We’re about to enter the season of Lent and on Wednesday, on Ash Wednesday, we will be invited into the observance of a holy land we’ll be invited to self reflection, and prayer; to fasting, to the reading of Scripture. I think if I had the chance to edit that paragraph in the prayer book I would add one thing, to listen, to enter the season of Lent to seek that holiness by quieting the voices, by quieting the noise, by suppressing our own expectations and assumptions, and by leaving ourselves wide open to just listen.   A minute a day, two, five will make a difference. start small and gradually build yourself to the point then your in a dialog and conversation listening, listening, to him.

Amen.

This sermon, offered at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Madison, Wisconsin on Christmas Day 2015, by the Very Rev. Andy Jones, is based on the readings for Christmas III and on the first chapter of the Book of Genesis.

What a difference a few hours can make. It’s hard to believe that we are in the same place.

Just last night we were gathered here in a dimly lit stable, resonating with the sound of donkeys, sheep, and cattle softly lowing.

The air was sweet with the smell of hay and of straw.

And there was a baby lying in a manger, a child whose coming had been foretold, and about whom a multitude of the heavenly host sang “Glory to God in the highest!”

This morning, in the bright light of day, we leave the stable, the animals, the familiar and comforting smells, even Mary, Joseph, and the baby far behind.

This morning the powerful poetry of the Prologue to the Gospel according to John sweeps us up and propels us into that swirling chaos when

^“the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).

John says:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:1 – 5).

This is John’s version of the infancy narrative.

No stable. No manger. No shepherds, sheep, angel choirs…

Not even a travel weary couple and their newly born child.

Coming here expecting Christmas this morning this Gospel reading can feel pretty disorienting.

Maybe it is supposed to be. Maybe that’s the point…

Think about it. This isn’t the first time this has happened to us this season.

We came here on the first Sunday of Advent, a time of anticipation and preparation for the coming of Christ, and the crèche was empty.

Instead of hearing about the child that was to be born in a manger we heard about the Christ who will come again. Instead of hearing about events of 2,000 years ago we heard about… the end of all time.

Today, on Christmas Day, we come here again, the crèche is full, the baby is lying right there in the manger, and instead of hearing about the child who is “good news of great joy to all the people…” we hear about… the beginning of all time!

Maybe the framers of the lectionary have chosen this reading for us today because they understood that there is a danger in focusing to closely on the familiar… sheep and shepherds, straw and hay, mothers and babies… things we can touch, smell, hear…

The story that we know and love so well; a story remembered in painting, song, and made for TV specials is so familiar, so sweet, so gentle… so domesticated that, on this day when we gather to mark the birth of Christ, we are in danger of forgetting the rest of the story… the part of the story that had the shepherds trembling in fear.

That’s why the writer of today’s Gospel has brought us here…

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

“Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good;”

“In the beginning was the Word,”

 “And God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’….   And it was so. God called the dome Sky.”

“In the beginning was the Word,”

“And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so.”

“In the beginning was the Word,”

And five more times, eight times in all, the word of God was spoken… and through him all things came into being.

“Through him all things came into being and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”

We need to remember that what we are talking about, what we are celebrating; the moment that leads us to sing “Glory to God in the highest,” is too big, too expansive, to much… to fit into a story, the elements of which are comforting, recognizable, and familiar. We are talking about the beginning and end, the alpha and the omega, the very breath of God forming the Word, bringing order to the chaos, and giving life and light to all people!

But that’s the real beauty of the story that we tell. It is a simple story, one that brings us great joy and comfort, filled with things that we know and understand and at the same time… all of that enormity, the breadth and scope of all time, from the beginning to the end of all things, rushes together, as if it is swirling through a funnel, and ends up right here, in a stable, in a manger, enfleshed, one of us.

Last night was a time for tenderness, for love; a time to press our noses into the soft, downy hair of a newborn and breath deep the sweet smell of new life, a life that comes to us with a story that will change the world.

Today, today is a time to lie in solemn stillness, a time for awe, for the wonder that comes from the realization that in the coming of this child

“the Word has become flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

“Glory to God in the highest!”

Amen

This sermon, offered on November 29, 2015 at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Madison Wisconsin by the Very Rev. Andy Jones,  is built on the readings assigned for the first Sunday in Advent Year C.  You can find those readings here.

What will it be like? What will it be like when God intervenes in the world? How will it come to pass that we all finally understand without a doubt that God loves us unconditionally? How will we discover that we really are bound to one another, brothers and sisters responsible for loving and caring for our neighbor?

What will cause the powers of this world, the people, the governments, the systems, that oppress God’s children, stealing their liberty and exploiting them for their own selfish needs to re examine themselves and to become life giving instead of life taking?

No one going hungry, no one suffering under the threat of war, no one struggling against injustice, prejudice or hatred…

We sit here to day in the season of Lent embracing our longing, our hope for that moment when all things will be made new, when we will all be restored to one another and God in Christ Jesus.

We’ve emptied the crèche, taking out the animals, shepherds, Maggi, even the Baby Jesus in an attempt to find ourselves in that same place of deep longing and desire that the people of Israel experienced under the oppression of Roman rule. We look around the world today and we long for God to do something, anything, to rescue us, to change the way the world moves, to bring God’s dream for creation to fruition. We sit in the dark in Advent waiting and we cry, “How long O Lord? How long?”

But just what is it that we are hoping for? What will it be like? What will life in the kingdom be like and what will finally bring it to fruition?

Hard to imagine isn’t it? We are so inured to the way that things are that we sometimes even fail to see the problems, the faults that lie at the root of the mess in the world around us. We are so used to life in the status quo that it is hard to imagine life in the kingdom. It is unimaginable.

And then, as if the kingdom itself weren’t hard enough to imagine, it’s even harder to imagine the kingdom actually coming! We look around us, we watch the news and we see how hard those with power work to keep their influence and control. We see people fighting and killing one another in the effort to further their own agenda, to spread their influence, and to gain more power and control. It is hard to imagine anything that would turn this mess around. What could possibly happen to change things so dramatically? It is unimaginable.

So what would we say if someone asked us for a description of that longed for kingdom, for an account of the hope that is in us? What would we say? What would we tell them?   After all… it is pretty unimaginable…

Maybe if we were to attempt to describe the unimaginable we would use unimaginable words. We might use the words from the sculpture of St Francis that hangs in our entryway, words that come from the Prophet Isaiah:

⁶ “The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
⁷ The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
⁸ The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
⁹ They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea”(Isaiah 11:6-9).

Wolves and lambs, leopards and kids, lion and fatling, adders and asps… and a little child shall lead them? Those images are pretty unimaginable images aren’t they? But perhaps that is the best that we can do in our effort to describe something that is as unimaginable as the kingdom of God.

We use unimaginable words for unimaginable events.

If that’s what it will look like, no one hurting or destroying on God’s holy mountain, how do we think that will come about? How will it happen? What will cause the changes in the way that the world works that would allow the kingdom to come? It would have to be a pretty dramatic event or series of events for those who hold the reigns of power and authority to bend and give, to enough to make room for the kingdom. Maybe if we were to look for words to describe this unimaginable occurrence we might choose words that are equally unimaginable and say:

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, 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).

Jesus was one of a long line of Hebrew prophets who used unimaginable words to describe unimaginable events. Were these descriptions of things that we can just barely even begin to wrap our arms around ever meant to be taken literally, as blow by blow accounts of the way things would happen? No! They were poetry, they were hyperbole, they were designed to impress upon us incomprehensible magnitude of those events and the change that they would bring. The prophets use unimaginable words to describe unimaginable events that we have to work and struggle to get our minds around.

So this is pretty tough stuff! Unimaginable words for unimaginable things and events that we have to struggle to wrap our minds around… Let’s turn our attention to something a little easier for us to grasp, something that we know how to describe and talk about… Today is the first day of Advent! Look, the crèche is out, the frontal and the flowers are off the altar, the color is blue and we have the Advent wreath. That’s great! Let’s take a few minutes to talk about the incarnation, Jesus, Emmanuel, God among us. What would we say if we were asked to describe the events surrounding the coming of the Messiah?

How would we talk about the notion that God, the God who had sought us, even pursued us, who had made goodness and love known to us in the creation, in the calling of Israel to be God’s people, and in the word spoken through the prophets decided in these last days to send the word made flesh, Jesus, God’s Son, to be the savior and redeemer of the world (BCP p. 368)? We might describe it in this way:

The Christ,

⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸ he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death–
even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8)

God, a slave, humbled, obedient even to the point of death on a cross? That would be pretty unimaginable wouldn’t it? God, holy and pure, creator of all that is coming into contact with us, the profane and sinful? That would be like matter and anti matter wouldn’t it? How can God become one of us and still be God? How would that happen?

Maybe if we were going to tell a story that unimaginable we would use words that were just as unimaginable:

“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”  But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.  The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.  He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:26-33)

Unimaginable words to describe unimaginable events that we have to work and struggle to get our minds around. Unimaginable…

And yet we a people bound together and formed by these unimaginable words dare to imagine. We dare to believe. We dare to claim the truth of these stories.

We believe that God has intervened in the life of the world, that God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ and changed everything. And we dare to hope, to believe, that God will prevail, that the kingdom that was ushered in when Christ came among us will someday come to fruition and be completed.

And so we wait in the dark, not out of a sense of despair, but in hope, longing for, believing in, trusting in the unimaginable….

Amen

This sermon was delivered at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church on October 25th, the last Sunday in our annual Stewardship Campaign, three days after the Saint Andrew’s Vestry met to vote on the scope of a $1.3 million dollar Campus Development Project!

We have spent the last three weeks talking about gratitude. We have heard from parishioners, members of this community, about things in their lives for which they are grateful; things both within and without these four walls. We’ve examined our Scriptures for the theme of gratitude, looking for examples of gratitude expressed, gratitude received, and the importance of having a grateful heart. So I’m delighted that today, just three days after the vestry met to decide the scope of our campus development project, the culmination of well over three years of work, I have the opportunity to stand here before you share just a little of the gratitude that I’m feeling.

First of all I am grateful for the life and legacy of Thomas Shaw who during his 50 some years as a member of this parish served as a member of the Vestry, as Junior Warden, and as a Lector. Tom served on the Rev. Deacon Susan Miller’s discernment committee as she worked towards ordination. He also served on the diocesan Commission on Ministry and the Diocesan Standing Committee.

I’m grateful that this parish was, and continues to be Tom’s home. Tom and his wife Betty, and two of his sons, Joseph and James are interred here in the columbarium, which Tom commissioned and purchased for this his parish family.

I’m grateful that this community was important enough to Tom that he remembered us in his will and left us of the quest that started us dreaming about what this place might be.

I’m grateful for the Campus Development Committee who worked with us to create a vision of how we might change and transform this parish and this community to better serve our vocation, and mission, and the needs of this community.

I am grateful for the capital campaign committee and all the people who worked to help us rally around that dream and helped us to raise close $1.4 million.

I’m grateful to the Campus Construction Committee, the Campus Construction Liaisons, and the Vestry, for working to pull those dreams together into a design and a plan that will allow us to use the money that we have raised to best address our needs and our concerns without putting us in debt and calling our future into question.

And I’m grateful that all of this work has been done in a way that allows us to stand in this place together, unified, whole, fully supporting a project that will replace the roof on this entire building, replace our boiler, replace the windows on the east side with Windows that are much more energy-efficient, to remodel and enlarge our kitchen, and to install a full-size ADA compliant elevator.

I’m grateful and I’m proud of the work that we have done.

Now you may have noticed that as I named all of the committees and groups for which I’m grateful I didn’t name individual people. In a project of the scope it’s always difficult to try to name those individuals because you’re sure to leave someone out and someone will be unhappy that their name wasn’t mentioned. Well, in a project size and scope of this one that list would’ve taken until sometime on Wednesday to complete.   Here’s why I believe that’s true.

Two weeks ago in a wonderful sermon entitled “Put Some Prayer On It” that Mother Dorota preached from the pulpit, she said some words that I found to be extremely moving and powerful. This is what she said:

“We come here week after week with our suffering and our joy, with our sickness and with our health, as sinners and as Saints, to invite God and one another into our fragile and vulnerable hearts.

We live in a day and age when the alternatives to Sunday morning worship are endless. We could be any number of other places right now, with any number of other people right now, probably even with people we have more in common with than we do with one another. But we show up here anyway.

We come even when we cannot clearly articulate to un churched friends why we go to church. We come even when we cannot clearly articulate to ourselves why go to church. We come and we pray. And in so doing we somehow become a “we.” We become the church. And by reminding ourselves and one another of the need we have for community-for-communion, our wounds begin to heal and our brokenness becomes a little more whole.”

We become a “We.” We have been a “We” as we gathered to talk about the ways that we might improve expand and renovate our campus.

We have been a “We” as we came together around a capital campaign and raised the money that will reshape and transform this building where we gather.

We have been a “We” as we have deliberated on the best ways to use the resources and gifts we been given to realize that transformation and renovation.

We have been a “We” in the process that has led us to this moment; a community bound together by respect, care, and love for one another, and for the Gospel.

Where I to have stood here and read the names of the individuals who comprise that “We,” we would surely have been here until Wednesday.

Even as we stand here at this moment, about to move into the next phase of this project in which we have been engaged for so many years, there are lots of other things that “We” do that stand to be recognized, things for which I am extremely grateful. Come here any day of the week and you will find this place buzzing with activity. there are lots and lots of we in the “We.”

There’s a 20s and 30s group that meets for monthly brunches and has formed a sense of community so strong that they gather outside of the walls of this place to be together.

Come here on a Thursday and you’ll hear the chancel and the bell choirs rehearsing; more community gathered within these walls.

On Friday morning the Holy Folders show up to fold our bulletins and once a quarter they come to fold our newsletter, and they too are a community.

Sunday morning there’s Youth Group, there is Church School there is a Sunday Forum.

Saturday mornings, Sunday mornings, and Wednesday afternoons you’ll find the altar guild here working to prepare the table to support us in our worship; working mostly behind the scenes but an important part of who we are and a community in their own right.

There’s another community that gathers on Tuesday morning the women’s Bible Study and twice a week members of the Holy Wisdom Monastery come here and offer classes in contemplative spirituality: Wisdom Practice Circles and Bridges classes… If your curiosity is piqued by those titles check out their advertisements on the bulletin board downstairs, on the column in the parish hall closest to the couches in the corner.

I’m grateful for Choral Evensong, Sung Compline, for the organists who come here and use this instrument every week to rehearse: our own Ken Stancer and Mary Monkmeyer but also Sigrun Franzen and Hazel Holden.

I’m grateful that Sigrun comes here once a month to teach group piano classes, that the Madison choral Project rehearses here, that we have a concert series with seven events scheduled, and that the Wisconsin Baroque ensemble will hold two of their concerts here within these walls this year.

Studio recitals for local flute, violin, piano, recorder, and organ students happen regularly within this space.

In support of the diocesan Haiti project we are offering Haitian Creole classes here on Thursday evenings. Six AA groups, four Girl Scout groups, yoga classes here in this space on Friday morning, the Regent Street co-op market holds their annual shareholders meeting here every year…

And we haven’t even gotten to Sunday morning worship yet!

So far this year our total attendance on Sunday morning is 5,985. Five thousand nine hundred and eighty five times someone has walked through those doors on a Sunday morning gather with us at this table.

Once a month we conduct a Eucharist at Coventry Village nursing home and the average attendance there is 37. Thirty seven people from that community who can’t make it to church are served by this community when “We” take church to them.

Wednesday mornings we gather for Eucharist at seven a.m. and anywhere from two to a dozen people find ourselves gathered in a circle here as we share the bread and wine and then gathered in the circle in the Rector’s Office where we continue to talk about the readings and the events that are shaping and molding our lives. We are a community that gathers in this space.

In all of this, all of this, it is “We” in action. It doesn’t do justice to what’s really happening to say that “we make it possible,” as if you could stand at a distance somehow and make all of these things happen. That doesn’t quite describe it.

It is “We” the Body of Christ here at 1833 Regent Street, formed as a community, working as one, that does these things.

There is another thing that “We” need to do and “We” need to be thinking about even as all of this activity swirls around us and sweeps us up in its frenzy and it’s chaos and fills us with joy and love.

“We” need to recognize that over the last nine years in this place our giving to this parish has increased by $5,266 a year while at the same time our expenses have increased by $11,271 a year. You don’t have to be a math genius, thank God because I am not one, to know that those two numbers can’t run in parallel for very long at all, and that eventually they will intersect with one another in a way that should raise some red flags for us. This year we are projecting that we will end with a deficit for the third year in a row. “We…,” “We” need to be aware of that fact as as “We” prepare to receive and bless our pledges of financial support here at this altar next Sunday.

On All Saints Day, when we gather to recognize and honor the saints past, present, and yet come; those who have gone before us and prepared the way, giving us this building and this community; all of us, the “We” gathered here now, doing all of this work together; and the Saints will come after us, our children the strangers, people we have yet to meet, who will come here looking to be part of the “We” that we are… we will recognize the Saints past present and yet come and commit ourselves to the work that “We” do as we offer those pledges of financial support to the life and ministry of Saint Andrew’s.

In the materials that you all received in the mail for this year’s stewardship campaign we pointed out that if “We” increase our giving my 5% this year we will cover our expenses at this years level. But we all know that expenses don’t work that way. They don’t stay flat from you year-to-year. Utility costs will go up. Paper will cost more. Expenses go up in almost every category of our ministry together and that’s why we’re asking everyone, all of us, “We,” to consider increasing our giving by at least 5%.   For those of us who can do more that extra giving that will help to rebuild some of the reserves that we’ve spent over the last years and position us in a way that “We” can do more and more of the things that “We” do together.

“We” gather in this space, the staff, our clergy, Music Director, and Church School Coordinator are here, the lights are on, the heat is on, in the summer the air-conditioning is running because of what “We” do as a community.

This is the moment for us to give thanks, to commit ourselves and to work together to make sure that it all continues, the work that “We” do in the manner, and at the level to which “We” are all accustomed.

Amen.

This sermon, delivered at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Madison Wisconsin on August 23rd, 2015 is built around the Gospel reading assigned for Proper 16 in the Revised Common Lectionary.  It also references the gospel readings for our journey through the 6th chapter of the Gospel according to John and Jesus’s proclamation, “I am the Bread of Life.”

You can find all of these readings on “The Lectionary Page” in the calendar beginning on July 26th.

This sermon begins with the reading of a poem by Michael Coffey.  Attribution is given at the end of the sermon.

do you also wish to go away

he asked and stunned us like electricity

and we whispered under our breath

 

yes we would like an easier path

clear cut through the oak forest

something that made sense at least

 

or better, we wish you would go away

Jesus, you keep complicating and confusing us

and messing us up so we can’t think straight

 

if only we could have not known you

and heard your words that burn in us now

and never felt your spirit wormhole its way through us

 

right on into the infinite yes

but then again, before you

was only the deafening finite no

 

and the deathtrap of our anxious breathless days

so, no, we don’t want to go away

not because we have any idea where this thing goes with you

 

but because, honestly, where the hell would we go?

it’s you, you ethereal brother, you who is so full of god-life

that every second in you seems eternal

Please be seated.

It is hard. Life is a difficult perilous journey. Everywhere we look things are happening which defy our understanding or belief.   We continue to hurt each other in ways that are deep and profound. And the world is a dangerous and hurting place. In the midst of all of this as we struggle to find our way forward our relationships are strained. Despite our best intentions and best efforts we hurt the people we love and the people we love hurt us. And the relationships that we managed to maintain often end when someone dies. Life is truly difficult.

And in the midst of all of this difficulty and pain and struggle we are confronted every day with choices; choices of who to be, of where to go, of what to do, of how to interpret and understand the world around us. It would be easier if those choices were between good and bad but often both choices seem good to us. And so we need some guidance. We need some help.

We come here searching for God, for meaning, for reason, trying to make sense out of this chaotic and painful life, and hoping to find some truth. It is difficult search.

Sometimes I think we wish, at least I know that I do, that God would just send me a text, or that I could subscribe to God’s Twitter feed, that I could subscribe to the podcast, or watch that show on PBS on Friday night and find some guidance, and some understanding, and some reason… But those just aren’t there. I long for something clear, something black and white. Who knows maybe even some words inscribed on clay tablets would work. But we’ve seen how that turns out.

So maybe what we really need is for God to come here God’s self to tell us what to do, to share with us the instruction manual. Which we probably wouldn’t read anyway… But to at least be in conversation and in dialogue with us so that we would have some direction and feel confident in our choices. So take a look at how that might work out.

A month ago on July 26 it seemed to be working pretty well as Jesus told the crowd to sit down on the grass, and he broke the five loaves of bread, and the thousands of people were fed. There was such an abundance that there were 12 baskets of leftovers. And when we saw what he had done we began to say indeed this is the Prophet who is to come into the world. But when we tried to take him by force and make him King he slipped through our fingers and went alone, off to a mountaintop, to pray.   Just when we thought we had access to the answers and the truth, someone whom we could ask directly… It slipped away.

The next week we came back hoping for clarity once again and Jesus said you’re looking for me not because of the signs that point to something beyond and through me, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. That felt pretty promising we might be onto something here. So we asked him what must we do to perform the works of God. And Jesus answered us, “This is the work of God that you believe in him who he has sent” (John 6:29). Believe in him whom he has sent? How does that help me make these terrible choices with which I am confronted every day? and Jesus said, “I am the bread of life whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” John 6:35).

The next week, after having pondered all of this, we returned again and we ask, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then can he now say, ‘I have come down heaven’” (John 6:42)? And Jesus reiterated that same perplexing response, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51).

“My flesh…” that one had us really worked up. So the next week, August 16^th, just last weekend, we come back asking that question, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat” (John 6:52)? Instead of giving us a clear answer to that question he said, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). “This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever” John 6:58).

I think that the biggest piece of the problem with Jesus’s responses to us and to the people he was encountering then in first century Palestine is that we are not ready for this kind of God. We would I think in fact prefer a God who stayed where God belongs and sends us rules, and instructions, and clear messages about the ways that we should behave and be. We thought we wanted come, and walk among us as one of us, but look what happened when God did that! God came down and said it’s not about rules. It’s not about obedience. It’s not about clear instructions on what to in every situation. What it’s really about is eating my flesh, and drinking my blood, abiding in my and I in you; taking me into your self and your life so completely that everything you think you do is related to your relationship with me. Rules, instruction manuals, clear guidance for every situation minimizes the relational aspect of our life. If it’s about obedience, if it’s about doing the right thing, if it’s about going from step 1a to1b to 2a to 2b… then we’re not really in relationship with God nor are we in relationship with one another as we journey through this life together. So when God chose to come among us, as one of us, Emmanuel, God shows up and is born in a stable. Now I don’t know that that really should have surprised us. You think about Jacob wrestling with God in the mud on the banks of the river Jabok, God has always been a God who is here, now, in this place, in the mud and the blood, deeply involved and engaged in who we are and in all of creation.

So what God wants us to understand in this long chapter 6 from John’s Gospel talking about bread and blood and flesh, and wine is that God is here in the relationships where we wrestle struggle God with one another.

I think that’s why the people Jesus was addressing back then found this to be so difficult and some of them left; because an instruction manual and clear guidance would be so much easier. The problem is that when we have those things we tend to weaponize them and use them to judge one another and judge ourselves. And what happens is we fall back into the very fear that Jesus came to liberate us from.

So is this to difficult teaching? It is a difficult teaching because it leaves with us the need to stay engaged, to be in relationship, to wrestle in the mud with the reality of God one another, and in us. It is a difficult teaching but it is the one that gives us life and sets us free to live as God intends us. It is this teaching that brings us into the light.   Where else would we go?

I started this morning with the home written by Michael Coffey who is an ordained pastor in the evangelical of America and author of a book entitled, “Mystery Without Rhyme or Reason: Poetic Reflections on the Revised Common Lectionary,” and I’ll close with that same poem. The poem’s title is “If Only We Had Better Options.”

do you also wish to go away

he asked and stunned us like electricity

and we whispered under our breath

 

yes we would like an easier path

clear cut through the oak forest

something that made sense at least

 

or better, we wish you would go away

Jesus, you keep complicating and confusing us

and messing us up so we can’t think straight

 

if only we could have not known you

and heard your words that burn in us now

and never felt your spirit wormhole its way through us

 

right on into the infinite yes

but then again, before you

was only the deafening finite no

 

and the deathtrap of our anxious breathless days

so, no, we don’t want to go away

not because we have any idea where this thing goes with you

 

but because, honestly, where the hell would we go?

it’s you, you ethereal brother, you who is so full of god-life

that every second in you seems eternal

 

Amen.