Be the Light - A Sermon Preached at St. John's Episcopal Church, Ellicott City, MD

This sermon was delivered at the One Worship service at St. John's, Ellicott City. It's an informal, outdoor liturgy, and the sermon was delivered without a manuscript. Variations from delivery guaranteed. I am grateful to Jim Harnish and Christine Parton Burkett for inspiration and to Michael Brown for the story from the ministry of Leslie Weatherhead.

A few years ago now, a friend of mine asked me to preach for her 

     while she was vacationing in Greece. 

          (I can assure you that she got the better end of that deal.)

She offered to let me stay at the parsonage the Saturday night before Sunday morning,

     and before she left she sent me detailed instructions for how to operate everything 

          in her home from the dishwasher to the oven to the alarm system.

Now, I should confess to you that I am not the world’s most technologically savvy person,

     but as I skimmed through the instructions for everything from the coffee pot to the washing machine,

          I thought to myself, “I am a capable person. I can do this.” 

               You see where this is headed already. 

When I arrived at her house that Saturday evening, I let myself in.

     With the instructions to the alarm in hand, I made my way to the laundry room and the control panel.

          I entered the code according to the sheet and then I was to hit the “off” button.

               But there was no “off” button. Just an infernal beeping … 

                    that was getting louder and faster as the seconds ticked by.

                         But there was still no “off.” 

Finally, with an ear drum-piercing wail, my time to find “off” ended. 

     I had visions of a SWAT team surrounding the parsonage and then carting me off to the Union Co jail.

          After what seemed an eternity of wailing, the phone rang. 

               It was a very serious man, named Chuck from AlarmForce, calling from Dubuque.

               Chuck was calling to make sure everything was alright.

               “No, Chuck,” I told him. “Everything is not alright.”  

               He didn’t seem to care all that much. He just had two questions: 

                    who are you? what are you doing there?

I tried to explain. My name was Nathan, and I was the visiting preacher who couldn’t find the “off” button.

     Chuck seemed unimpressed, until I gave him the magic password which proved I was alright. 

          He remotely deactivated the alarm and hung up,

               leaving me alone with an alarm system that was flashing "not ready to arm."

I worried that the Union Co sheriff might descend on the house at any moment,

     with the same two questions: who are you and why are you here?

          So, I took every card out of my wallet that had my picture and my name on it and held it in my left hand,

               while holding my alb, stole, and Bible in the other.

          What my Sam's card couldn't prove, the Bible might.

Long story short,

the sheriff never came.

     After an hour of nervously waiting on the porch, I went in the house again

          to face "not ready to arm."

In the years since that Saturday evening,

I have come to see how Chuck’s questions are

     ones that we live beside and bump up against throughout our lives.

          Who are you? What are you doing? 

               Almost entirely regardless of who we are, there they are:

                    who are you? What are you doing here? again and again.

The scriptures offer some help in answering them.

In the reading from Genesis 1, we hear of a cosmic, created order

     in which we take place as Godmade, loved, and good.

          That's who we are.

          In the verses beyond the reading, we hear that we are made 

               in the image of God -- giving us some sense of why we are here

                    and what we ought to be doing here.

Of course, the interesting part, though,

is that the Scriptures spend more time worrying 

     not about who we are as individuals and what we are doing here as individuals,

          but about who we are and what we are doing here 

               as a community, as a community of faith, as the Church.

In John 1, 

we are told that Jesus is the Light that is coming into the world,

     the Light that darkness can never overshadow,

          the Light that shines on all people. 

It is amazing, then, that this same One who is Himself the Light of the World,

in the fifth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, turns to His followers and says,

     "You are the Light of the World." As He is, so you shall be in the world.

          You really shouldn't read John 1 apart from Matthew 5 and the sermon on the mount.

               That which He is in the world, we are called to be for the world, too.

The Apostle Paul says it this way in Philippians,

     "in this age, you shine like stars in the sky." 

          it is who you are as a church;

               it is who we are as the Body of Christ. 

                    Here, at St. John's, 

                         you say it this way: "be the Light." 

But when we remember and embrace this identity, there comes with it an obligation. 

The difficulty of being the Light and bearing the Light

     is that we must wade into darkness. 

If we are to be the Light of the World

     then we must go where the Light of the World led -- straight into the darkness,

          we must be with those who sorrow and suffer,

                    we must be those who know more than their share of tragedy and temptation. 

                    If we are the Light, then this is what we are doing here.

The story’s told that, 

in the darkest days of the second World War,

the famous preacher Leslie Weatherhead was preaching 

     at a church in Inner City London, in one of the roughest parts of town.

          He didn’t worry that much about it because he had his collar and his Bible.

Then one night, after the service, he was walking from church,

     when the air raid sirens sounded, and the city was plunged into darkness.

          And he realized that, in the darkness, no one could see the collar,

               and no one could see the Bible. 

                    And he was afraid.

     Then, he heard footsteps behind him, and he was really afraid.

          He slowed down, the footsteps slowed down;

               he sped up, they sped up. 

                    Finally, not knowing what else to do,

                         he wheeled around, faced the dark and shouted,

                              “Who are you and what do you want from me?”

And there came a tearful reply from a child who said,

          “Mister, I’m scared, and I need someone to stay close to.” 

Not far from this place, 

     there is a parent who watched the President address the nation on Wednesday night,

          and all he or she could hear was the darkness of another year with a child in harm's way on foreign soil.

Not far from this place,

     there is a coworker who knows the deep darkness of being desperately alone. 

Not far from this place, 

     there is a child who knows the darkness of being bullied or beaten ... by parent or sibling or classmate.

Not far from this place, 

     there is a person who knows the darkness of spending another night on the streets,

          wondering when and if the next meal will come.

Not far from this place,

     there is a person who lives in the darkness of shame and stigma,

          under the shadow of prejudice and persecution.

Not far from this place,

     there is someone in the darkness crying out,

          "Mister, I'm scared, and I need someone to stay close to."

And in their darkness,

you are the Light.

     To them, you bring the Light.

And why wouldn't you?

     It's who you are, and what you're doing here.         

Walls - A Sermon Preached at the Episcopal Church of the Advocate

I'm catching up on posting sermons from the Advocate. Here's one from May 2013:

Years ago, the border between the United States and Mexico in southern California was marked by rope, a single rope strung between wooden piers. In the late ‘60s, the rope was replaced by a single strand of barbed wire. In the ‘70s, the barbed wire was replaced by a chain link fence. In 2009, the single chain link fence was replaced by two walls framing a no-mans’-land, and in the last three years, in the middle of that no-mans’-land, a new third wall rises some twenty feet into the air and stretches out into the sea. It garishly separates countries, yes, but peoples and people, too. It mars creation and stains our humanity. And lest there is any confusion: war has done this. The war on drugs built the fence, and the war on terror built the walls.

Just to be clear, this is not a sermon about immigration policy, though the subject deserves our zealous witness, and there are many in this congregation who can tutor all of us on the issues involved. This is not that sermon. This is not a sermon to remind us that every day we go without reasonable immigration policy another person will die of exposure trying to cross the southern border to be rejoined with family or to begin a new life —- nor is this is a sermon about the hubris of the vigilantes who patrol the border seeking to kill those trying to cross over. This is not a sermon about the economic divide that the border represents, about the masses living in poverty on the south side of the border with so much prosperity in view but always just beyond reach. This is not that sermon.

This is a sermon about walls, about the walls, literal and metaphorical, that divide us from one another. This is a sermon about the way that we are taught to keep each other at arm’s length and the ways that we barricade our lives from one another. This is a sermon acknowledging that there are times when the rope that divides us becomes barbed wire and barbed wire becomes a fence and a fence becomes a wall and one wall becomes three.  Lest there be any confusion: sin does that. Sin builds fences; sin builds walls. Sin builds impermeable borders when all that was needed were good boundaries. This is a sermon about walls, about isolation, about retrenchment and retreat. And this is a sermon about God’s very different dream for us.

+++

The seventeenth chapter of John’s Gospel is largely made up of a prayer of Jesus just hours before his arrest, trial and death. Some scholars call it part of the “Farewell Discourses,” but that’s a little unfair because it really isn’t a speech to his first disciples so much as it is a prayer on their behalf – and our behalf. This is pure intercession. For us to read it today is a bit like eavesdropping. It is like listening to the heartbeat of the Messiah. This is Jesus speaking from the core of who he is about who he hopes we would be, about how he hopes we would be in the world and how we would carry ourselves in it. This is Jesus articulating as clearly as possible what it means for us to be His followers.

And did you hear what he prayed? In the midst of the logic game that is Jesus at prayer in John 17, there is a simple six word petition that beautifully encapsulates all the rest: I pray they will be one. Moments before his arrest, hours before his death, this is what is on the heart of Jesus – that we might be one, that we might be done with fences and walls, that we might bear a united witness to the world of the very dream of God.

In every sermon I have ever heard Bishop Michael Curry [Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina] give, sooner or later, he says something like sounds like this: “it’s not enough to be the human race; we are called to be and become the human family of God.”[1] Have you heard him say this? Well, recently, I was re-watching his sermon from General Convention last year (that’s what church geeks like me do for fun!), and I noticed that, on the website, there were all of these comments about the sermon. Most of them were affirming, but one of the comments said something like this: “This human family of God stuff is just typical namby-pamby liberal garbage. Go back, bishop, and read your Bible.” You know, I think he got that just backwards.

From beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation, the Scriptures show us that God has a single dream for all creation —- that we might be bound together in and through our common humanity in and through the Spirit’s work that we might know each other as brothers and sisters, as beloved children of a single heavenly parent. God’s dream is of a world that knows and lives shalom, that beautiful vision of creation at peace with itself and reconciled to God.

But, from beginning to end, the Scriptures also show us how we build walls. The story of Adam and Eve reminds us how we build barriers of blame. The story of Cain and Abel reminds us how we erect walls of jealousy. The story of Jacob and Esau shows how we build walls with ambition and self-promotion, even as early as the womb. The story of Joseph and his brothers reminds us how we build walls of pride and self-indulgence and how such walls inevitably lead to violence. The story of David and Bathsheba reminds us that power and possession damn others and barricade us. The story of Jonah teaches us that our own prejudice and self-importance builds borders that are hard to cross. In our passage from Acts, we are reminded that greed builds a wall and denies others their humanity.

From beginning to end, the two things seem caught in intractable conflict: God’s dream for all of us to be one and our seemingly endless ability to segregate and separate ourselves from each other. It is no wonder then that Jesus prays that the Church might be different. Jesus prays that we will get it right, that we might be one. And at our best, we are. At our best, we are a sign … we are a symbol … we are a foretaste of the coming unity of all humanity. We are meant to prefigure God’s dream of shalom. At our best, we are united beyond whatever walls we might know outside of this place. When we walk through those doors, Jesus’ prayer is answered when we find ourselves entering a place where each woman is a sister to us and each man is a brother to us, where we find a unity that is deep and rich and full.

A pastor of a church in Colorado every week starts her sermons with these words:[2]
Partnered, divorced or single here, it’s one family that mingles here.
Conservative or liberal here, we all give a little here.
Big or small here, there’s room for us all here.
Doubt or believe here, we all can receive here.
LGBTQ or straight here, there’s no hate here
Poor or rich here, find your niche here.
Woman or man here, everyone can here.
Whatever your race here, for all of us grace here.
In imitation of the ridiculous love God has
for each of us and all of us,
we choose to live in love.
Every week that she says this, she takes a sledgehammer to the walls that divide the rest of the week. She proclaims that the church is a different kind of place.

+++

Eight hours a week, at the wall that divides the United States and Mexico, border agents open no mans’ land, and loved ones on both sides of the border pour through the two outer walls and gather next to the giant wall. Through the crisscrossed rebar, families can glimpse each other, exchange a few words, and touch fingers. You cannot pass anything through the wall without being detained for questioning. And every week, right as we gather here for our 5 o’clock liturgy, a pastor comes to the US side of the wall, and a pastor comes to the Mexican side of the wall, and together, they lead a bilingual worship service. They sing, they read Scripture and testify. And when all the testifying has happened, they pray the Great Thanksgiving. And they take a broken loaf and share it on each side of the wall.

I pray they will be one, says Jesus. And for a few moments, we are, and a wall comes down. Amen.

The Opening of Eyes

A sermon preached at the Episcopal Church of the Advocate

Easter III (May 4, 2014)

The poet David Whyte says it this way:

"Life is no passing memory of what has been

nor the remaining pages in a great book 

waiting to be read.

[Life] is the opening of eyes long closed. 

It is the vision of far off things

seen for the silence they hold.

It is the heart after years

of secret conversing,

speaking out loud in the clear air."

     Life is the opening of eyes long closed. 

When we meet them, 

these two travelers heading to Emmaus, 

they are confused, bewildered, despairing.

One tradition says that the two are husband and wife -- 

leaving Jerusalem, defeated by the shadow of a cross,

heading home to Emmaus to see if there, there was a life beyond the shadow.

And as they walk, they talk.

It was only a seven-mile journey between Jerusalem and Emmaus,

but somewhere within those seven miles, 

the couple are joined in their walk by a seeming stranger,

a rather chatty and inquisitive fellow who seems to know nothing of current events.

"What are you talking about?" he asks. (The way we read that begins to interpret the entire story.) 

Cleopas -- the one of the two travelers who in Luke's account has his name recorded -- answers:

"Are you the only one in Jerusalem who doesn't know what's happened? The things that have happened in these last days?"

"What things?" the stranger inquires. 

"The things about Jesus of Nazareth." 

You can almost hear the weariness in his voice; 

it is the fatigue of the grieving -- 

that hollow echo in a voice 

that doesn't want to tell it again. 

But they do. 

They tell him of the itinerant Galileean that they loved, 

a preacher, mighty in word and deed, 

a prophet, loved by God and by people, 

put to death by Rome, crucified no less. 

They had so much hope for Him. 

They had so much hope because of Him.

And they tell him that the women of their group 

today astounded them with a fantastical tale of an empty tomb --

a story that they quickly and carefully verified, 

and it was as the women said. 

Body gone. Linens left. What it means -- they're not sure. 

But we know what they've decided; we know because they're on the road.

They are heading home to do what grieving people do:

pick up the pieces, 

figure out if there is life after, 

begin again again.

They had thought He was the One to save Israel.

The stranger --

the same guy who just moments before 

had seemed innocent or incompetent,

or at the very least a little uninformed --

begins to teach. 

He's not the most charitable instructor -- you probably noticed that in the reading --

"you foolish people with your dull minds and slow hearts" --

it's not the way any teacher of mine started a class.

But what He lacks in charm, He makes up for in comprehensiveness --

Starting with Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy 

and going all the way to the end of the Hebrew Scriptures,

the stranger explains why Jesus died and why Jesus lives.

It was a crash course in the Hebrew Bible 

that took the better part of the seven-mile walk to Emmaus.

When they make it to town, the stranger acted like He was going to keep going,

but instead, Cleopas and the one without name, invite Him to stay the night.

And He goes home with them, and there, at dinner,

the stranger in their midst does something so familiar, 

something so readily recognizable,

that they knew at once who He was:

He took bread. Blessed it. Broke it. Gave it. 

It was so familiar.

They had seen it before. 

On hillsides and by lakeshores

where thousands had been fed.

They had seen it before.

At the dinner tables of the humble and the haughty

who had invited Him home.

They had seen it before.

At celebrations and feasts,

sprawling and intimate. 

And they had heard that just a few days ago

at the Passover feast 

that He had done it again. 

That He had taken bread. Blessed, broke and gave it to them. 

But that this time He had called it His Body, 

and said it would be broken for them,

and that they should eat it in remembrance of Him. 

They had seen it before. 

They had heard it before.

And when they saw it again in Emmaus,

their eyes were opened, and they knew.

The fears of despairing days disappeared. 

They had thought He was the One who would redeem, and He is. 

They had thought that the preacher, the prophet was going to change everything, and He did.

The stranger is no stranger but a Savior. 

"Life is no passing memory of what has been

nor the remaining pages in a great book 

waiting to be read.

[Life] is the opening of eyes long closed."

It still happens, you know?

Not always, but sometimes.

Sometimes gathered here, our eyes are opened and we glimpse Him.

Sometimes in the words of Thomas Merton:

"in the breaking of the Bread [we see]

the Stranger who was our companion yesterday and the day before."

Sometimes, in the taking, blessing, breaking and giving,

We see something so familiar, so readily recognizable,

That we know the Host. That we see Him in our midst.

Here at the Advocate, 

We say that one of our core values is transformation, 

which if anything is about the opening of eyes.

It's about seeing what is and what is really real. 

It is about seeing The Risen Christ with us. 

And when it happens, 

Our fears give way to faith.

Despair gives way to hope.

Grief gives way to grace.

Our shame and sorrow recede, and

Our Savior is in our midst.

Sometimes, gathered around this table, 

Our eyes are opened, and 

When it happens, it feels like life.