Advent I - Skip Windsor

Matthew 24:36-44
What Time It Is

It’s happened already. No sooner than the turkey is gone and the pumpkin pie is eaten, the perennial Christmas songs begin playing on the radio, providing background music at Starbucks, and filling the mall’s walls with sounds of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas,” and “Feliz Navidad.” Like everyone else, it is easy to get in the swing of things and accompany Johnny Mathis on the radio when he sings, “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire with Jack Frost nipping at our noses…” After hearing Burl Ives and Jose Feliciano’s continuous voices awhile, one wonders where are the Christmas songs? The real Christmas songs like “Come all ye faithful,” “It came upon a midnight clear,” or “Hark! The herald angels sing.”

In previous generations, children grew up singing songs about the birth of the Christ Child, about star struck shepherds, about choirs of angels, and about kings bearing gifts. If not in church, where? There are few public places today where a youngster can hear the Christmas hymns like the ones contained in your hymnals in front of you. And the irony of it all is that we are nowhere near December 25th yet. It is still November. There is still a month to go before Jesus is born. So, today’s lesson from Matthew comes like a shock of flowing ice water over us making Jack Frost looking quite pale in comparison. Here we hear Jesus as a grown man. He is fully into his public ministry. He has already called the disciples, provoked the principalities and powers, and preached the Sermon on the Mount.

Now he is telling his followers to be ready. “About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, only the Father.” The key word is this sentence is “that.” That day means when there will be a reckoning. When things that were up will be down and when those things that were down will be raised up. Even Jesus declares not to know the day when will be the coming of the Son of Man. Only God knows. This warning shot comes over the bows of the commercial ship we call “Christmas.” Jesus is warning his disciples to pay attention to the signs that are all around them that something, someone, is coming. The irony of ironies as we begin a new Christian Year is that the early season of Advent speaks not about Bethlehem and birth but about the return of the Risen Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, in the fullness of his glory. This is definitely not the message from Macy’s. It is the message from the Father.

Placing the Gospel lesson about End Times at the beginning of Advent is not to highlight our lassitude but to live with awareness of the expectations and obligations of God’s reign. This is not to put the fear of God in us or place us on heightened alert like some imminent terrorist attack. Rather, it is to mark a way of living and embracing the unexpected in ways that grounds our interactions and relationships on a daily basis. I am reminded of the story of an innkeeper on Nantucket who as a little girl helped her parents in the summer to greet and befriend the guests of the inn. She remembers a set of elderly sisters from Boston who came every August and never ventured forth but sat out on the porch and read their Bibles. Year after year, the sisters came in August, sat on the porch, and read their Bibles. Finally, when she was much older, the future innkeeper’s curiosity got the best of her; and she asked them why they read their Bibles year in and year out. She never forgot what they said. They said, “We are cramming for finals.”

Advent is about cramming for finals not knowing when the final exam is going to be. A gardener tends to her garden all the time. She must weed, water, and till being patient but ready at all times. A soldier on duty must be alert and every watchful to protect his troops. A lifeguard must be vigilant watching the people in the water but also the shape of the waves, the movement of the current, and the impending rain clouds. Just as a gardener, a soldier, and a lifeguard are watchful and need full attentiveness so you and I need to be attending to our spiritual lives. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is telling his followers about being attentive to the obligations of being a disciple and living up to the expectations of those who wish to follow him. In the midst of the demands of daily life as people nurture their families, cultivate their careers, and sustain their health, Jesus asks the disciples to be attentive to their relationship with God.

Stephen Covey in well-regarded book on management called Seven Habits of Highly Effective People speaks in one chapter about time management. He proposes that people live in four spheres or quadrants: urgent and important, urgent and not important, not urgent but important, and not urgent and not important. Some of those categories are obvious: a random telephone solicitation is not important and not urgent; a hospital emergency is urgent and important; deciding what tip to leave after lunch is urgent but not important (except to the waiter!); and going to exercise is important or not urgent. Covey believes that the one people need to work on most is the important but not urgent sphere of our lives. It is here where we decide about our health: physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. And it is in this quadrant where Advent lives.

Imagine instead of counting calories you could count your blessings. Instead of fretting about your food intake you could consider your spiritual intake in worship, prayer, contemplation and reading. Instead of worrying about tomorrow you could be nurturing what surrounds you today. The invitation of Advent is to live where you will be most healthy in body, mind and spirit. It is the season to take stock of what is really important in life. It is the time to walk in the light of the Lord. It is the time to make connections with God and with one another. As we are already being commanded to consume this holiday, we are invited to go another way and to share with others God’s gift to us through Jesus Christ. It means that as we take care of ourselves we are to take care of others as well. If we become more attuned to the spiritual and material needs of others, we will not worry about tomorrow for in today there plenty to consider, reflect and do.

Just as we think about the holiday shopping season not being about the Nativity of Jesus, and Advent not being just about his first coming but his second coming, too, so Advent is not just about ourselves but about the welfare of others. Christian ministry and mission never take the day off. In the most recent edition of Newsweek magazine, the lead article is about the food divide between the rich and the poor. It details how income divides what people can afford and what they cannot afford. According to the article by religion editor, Lisa Miller, 17% of Americans live in households that are “food insecure.” Such insecurity arises when a family runs out of money they cannot buy food. It is also linked to other economic measures like housing and employment. In America food has become a premier marker of social distinction about who can afford to buy healthy food like fish, lean meats, grains and vegetables and who cannot afford it; and those who cannot buy more processed foods because they are cheaper and taste good. The USDA cites that in the last three years food stamps have risen 58% and women and children, who are on food stamps, tend to be more overweight than who are not. The current debate about buying soft drinks with food stamps brings this whole justice issue into sharper clarity.

The rise of food activists and the advent of the food movement have raised the awareness not only of this economic and social divide among Americans but also how we are to think about how to distribute locally grown and organic food to the least of our brothers and sisters among us. Deeper involvement in conversations with Big Food, public school diets, food pantries like ours in Needham, local community farms and food co-ops, are ways to demonstrate choices and alternatives to sustaining healthy lives and the healthy well being of others. An Advent call to watchfulness is a call for us to shift our consciousness and to see food as a shared resource rather than as a consumer item.

In this season of consumerism, Advent is the herald’s call to us to consider our obligations as followers of Christ to build up the Kingdom of God right now. These obligations are not high and mighty; rather they are about compassion, togetherness, intimacy, and even to the most simple of pleasures to break bread in healthy ways with our neighbors in need. As a community of faith we are formed and informed by Jesus Christ to be healthy people to help make a healthier world.

So as we begin a new church year and are at the advent of the Advent season consider your life. Consider not what the future holds but rather what holds you today. For if we listen to the still small voice within we will hear something far more merry than we hear on the radio, far more joyful than any gift, and far more hopeful than anything we can imagine or pray for. So be watchful and be glad. For salvation is nearer to us than we ever knew.

Pentecost XXIII - Lynn Campbell

2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12, Luke 19:1-10
Climb a Tree!


When was the last time you climbed a tree or looked down from a great height? For me it was this past summer while serving as a chaplain at the Barbara C Harris Summer Camp. I was there to help with bible study and the twice-daily worship, to provide pastoral counseling to the campers and the staff and be a calming presence to homesick kids. But there was another part of the job that was unexpected. It involved joining right in with the kids no matter what activity they were doing that day. Some how the kids convinced me to do the high ropes with them. I awkwardly climbed a tree and walked across a rope that were entirely too high and too narrow for my liking. It is one of my best memories from camp- even if I did wake up the next day with sore muscles and a massive bruise on my leg!

Climbing a tree is something normally reserved for kids. Certainly not an activity for dignified adults. This was just as true in Jesus’ time as it is now. People were not often running through town and climbing trees. But that is exactly what Zacchaeus in today’s Gospel story did. Now, Zacchaeus was a tax collector, the chief tax collector. His job required maintaining a certain reputation and perhaps a level of fear in the people of Jericho. In first century Palestine the Roman government contracted with private individuals to collect taxes. As long as the government got its proper payment, the tax collector could charge whatever amount he wanted. As you can imagine this made the tax collectors quite rich and quite unpopular. They were seen as thieves and traders. Devout Jews would have avoided all contact with these known sinners. As the chief among these tax collector Zacchaeus was not on many people’s top ten list of favorite people.

But none of that mattered to Zacchaeus on the day Jesus passed through Jericho. Everyone in town had probably heard about this man named Jesus and wanted to see him. People talked of him raising a widow’s son from the dead, they curing Simon’s mother-in-law and the paralyzed man who was lowered to Jesus from the top of a roof. And just a few weeks ago we heard the story of Jesus healing the 10 lepers. Pretty unbelievable stuff. A crowd gathered in Jericho to see this infamous man pass by. Maybe they would witness or be a recipient of one of his miraculous actions. Zacchaeus was one among many in this crowd. Scripture tells us that he was short of stature and not able to see over the growing crowd. If he wanted to see Jesus he was going to have to do something.

So, he decides to climb a tree. As a professional businessman Zacchaeus took a risk by running through the crowd and climbing the sycamore tree. Imagine it. It probably looked a bit ridiculous. There is no graceful way to climb a tree. I can imagine someone in the crowd pointing at Zacchaeus and laughing. But he isn’t thinking about the people around him. Their jeering doesn’t bother him. Instead there is a sense of urgency and need that drives him to put his reputation aside and climb the tree.

This summer I realized that climbing a tree has the potential to change our perspective. Once over that initial fear of being so far above the ground I began to look around. In the distance the cabins, the chapel, and the fields were visible, as were groups of happy kids running around laughing and having a wonderful time. I could see the beauty of the campgrounds and the great attention paid to its care. There was something about seeing all of this at once that opened my heart to God’s presence surrounding me in nature and in each of those campers. Climbing to new heights can be both terrifying and amazing. Whether it is on a high rope course, a mountain peak, or in our imagination, we get a new perspective on life. It opens us to new ways of seeing and experiencing God. Was Zacchaeus similarly struck by this changed perspective, by the people he saw and the landscape that surrounded him?

Regardless of what urged him to climb that tree or what happened once he was nestled onto a branch I’m guessing Jesus’ words nearly knocked him out of the tree. “Zacchaeus,” Jesus calls, looking right up at him. “HURRY and come down; for I MUST stay at your house TODAY.” Jesus calls him out by name. Jesus looks up, over the crowds and into the tree and calls him down. It is almost as if Jesus is looking for him, as if he came to Jericho for Zaccaeus.

There is a sense of urgency for Zacchaeus and for Jesus. Zacchaeus must see Jesus and Jesus must go to the house of Zaccaeus TODAY. It can not wait. Jesus is entering Jericho. His journey to Jerusalem is coming to an end. We know that he is walking towards his passion and death. He’ll soon be nailed to the wood of a tree, he’ll soon be crucified. Time is running out. He must get the message of God’s saving love to everyone open to hearing and receiving it. And Zacchaeus is ready to hear and receive it.

Zacchaeus, as the chief tax collector, is a man marginalized from his own Jewish community. He may think no one is desperately seeking him. But Jesus is. Just as Jesus calls Zacchaeus by name, he calls each of us by name. We may need to change our perspective in order to hear his voice. Maybe what we need to do is climb high into a tree in order to see with fresh eyes and to hear in new ways. A new perspective comes by making time in our busy lives for God, by venturing to new and unsettling places, by reaching out to people in need in our Christ Church community and beyond. Many of us have also experience a changed perspective through unexpected moments of joy or sorrow. These moments are important because they break us open in new ways and open us to the voice of God. And it is this voice that leads us on the journey of discipleship.

When Jesus looks at Zacchaeus he doesn’t see a sinner without hope of salvation. He sees a beloved child of God. From the vantage point of the tree, Zacchaeus experiences the loving expression on Jesus’ face. He hurries down the tree and with happiness welcomes Jesus to his home. Without hesitation he gives away half of his possessions to the poor and vows to repay four times what he has defrauded anyone.
The crowd watches this happen and grumbles to one another. How can Jesus seek out this known sinner and go to his house? To this crowd Jesus announces the good news of salvation. “Today salvation has come to this house because he too is a son of Abraham.” A son of Abraham, a member of the community, a member of the family of God.

Jesus seeks out each one of us, and calls us by name. And this doesn’t happen just once in our lifetimes. It happens over and over again. Being open to these encounters will change us, as it changed Zacchaeus. These encounters will call us to mend broken relationships, to risk knowing and being known in community, and to move out of our comfort zones in service of God’s kingdom of justice and peace. They’ll lead us deeper into community and deeper in our relationship with God.

And for all this we give thanks. We give thanks to God. And we remember the words of Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians where he writes: “We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing.” We give thanks for our changing perspective because these changes open the way for our faith in God to increase and for our love for another to grow abundantly.

Trinity Sunday - Skip Windsor

Romans 5:1-5
Earn This!

Today is Trinity Sunday and is the only Sunday in the Christian year given over to a theological doctrine. No wonder many preachers try to escape this Sunday from preaching. The only clergyman I know who likes to preach on Trinity Sunday is Peter. Since he has preached the last two Trinity Sundays, it is only fair that I take my turn in the pulpit today.

As we celebrate Trinity Sunday today, I am reminded of the story told about Sir Winston Churchill who was a member of Trinity House, London, and a service organization dedicated to the well being of sailors. He was invited to France for a special occasion dressed in the Trinity House uniform, which puzzled the French. One Frenchmen got up the courage to ask Churchill what the uniform was he was wearing. Churchill said: “I am an elder brother of the Trinity.” To which the astonished Frenchman replied: “Mon Dieu!”

We also celebrate Memorial Day this weekend and pause to remember our nation and our fallen warriors who died in service to our country. This weekend we will see many American flags and red ribbons festooned throughout many cemeteries honoring the valorous dead. The Holiday began soon after the Civil War and was originally called Decoration Day as a time to decorate the graves of the dead with flowers. Originally, May 30th was chosen because flowers would be in bloom; and today, Memorial Day is officially the last Monday in May. Tomorrow, on this weekend, we remember and honor those who gave their lives for our country and for our freedom.

At first glance Memorial Day has absolutely nothing to do with Trinity Sunday. One is a secular holiday and the other is a feast day of the Christian Year that follows on the heels of Pentecost. Memorial Day is concrete. It is about real people – veterans, fallen heroes, war and peace. Trinity Sunday, on the other hand, is abstract. Some would even say obtuse. It has little to do with ethical decision-making nor personal values nor courage nor honor and nothing about nations and peoples. Many preachers will avoid mixing the two occasions and will probably preach about The Trinity since no one knows anything conclusive about the Trinity anyway - including the preacher!

However, a careful reading of our epistle lesson today from Paul’s Letter to the Romans which addresses suffering and sacrifice reveals themes related to martyrdom, freedom, and service. The Apostle Paul is writing to a small mixed Christian community in Rome. Their diversity is both their gift and their burden. Some are Jewish Christians and some are Pagan Christians. It would be like putting Lakers fans in a room with Celtics fans and calling them all Americans. Paul wanted to teach them that all people are awakened to the grace of God. Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ each person – male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free – has a personal relationship with God and with one another.

By being reconciled with God and with one another Paul points out that God does not want us to simply enjoy only a one-on-one relationship with him but to enlist all Christians to God’s service by building up the reign of God and working for his kingdom. And this will put all kinds of pressures, problems and sacrifices on the disciples requiring sacrifice, endurance and hope even when there seems to be nothing happening. According to Paul, since we are awakened to God’s grace and love we can boast in our sufferings and live with patient endurance. Believing in a God graced world, we have all the gifts we need to grow and mature into the full stature of Christ regardless of the changes, challenges and chances of life.

The poet Goethe writes that character is cumulative. And Paul is saying the same thing: The journey of faith is grounded in day-to-day decisions. Christian character is formed through the cauldrons of suffering, sacrifice, endurance and hope. Whatever comes our way in life we are given a model of faithful endurance through Jesus Christ. Through his sacrifice that gives eternal life, Jesus invites us to look beyond our own self-interests to the greater good of others, to offer thanks for our blessings and to glorify God who gives life and sustains life.

Through the eyes of Paul, particularly from today’s reading in Romans, Memorial Day is a vivid reminder of the sacrifices mad by others on our behalf. It is also the occasion for us to re-commit ourselves to the greater good living out in action and deed the words of Matthew 25: “When I was hungry you fed me. When I was naked you clothed me…” Because of the sacrifices of others, Memorial Day is the occasion to shed of our narrow self-interests for the greater good of family and friends, church and community, the nation and the world.

In this current age of personal, corporate and national self interest where material goals are to pay less taxes, to make more money, to blame the other guy, and to be indifferent to the fragile ecosystems of our earth, air and waters, Memorial Day invites you and me to balance our self interests with the wider interests of our planet and its people. Right now, you and I are witnessing the greatest environmental disaster in our country’s history. We are engaged in another kind of war. Who is to blame for the mammoth oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? We can point fingers; but at some point we have to take personal responsibility for what has happened given the world’s great need for oil.

Our immediate responses are anger and frustration. Anger will not change a society let alone change a planet. Our moral response is manifold and includes environmental initiatives with less dependency upon fossil fuels, more for wind, solar alternatives, and increasing and diligent collaboration with other cultures and nation on environmental sustainability. In the midst, environmental degradation and pollution can we still hope? Can we have a dream of the earth that is healthy again? It will require a new way of living. It will require both sharing and sacrificing. It will require a commitment to environmental sustainability that will call into question how we use the earth’s resources with one another. It will demand a universal vision of how to live as a global community. It will require prophets and sages. It will require the wise and the courageous. As faithful people, you and I are called to dream the good dreams of God in an age of nightmare.

Those who came before us were dreamers and visionaries. Those who served our country in time of war held dreams of a better country and a free world devoid of oppression and fear. Our fallen warriors sacrifices to the greater good in time of war can serve as inspirations for us who are locked in multiple wars right now: the war for the environment, the war to fight terrorism, the war to combat poverty.

In the motion picture Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks plays a WWII officer in charge of a squad of men who are given orders to find a Private Ryan and to return him safely home because all the rest of his brothers were killed in the war. After finding Ryan behind enemy lines, Hanks and his squad of soldiers must defend a bridge in a French village until reinforcements arrive. In the climatic scene of the film, the soldiers defend the bridge against the Germans and the officer played by Hanks is mortally wounded. As he is dying Private Ryan comes over to him after seeing that most of the men who “saved” Ryan are casualties. The officer’s last words to him are: “Earn this.”

If you go to a cemetery this weekend and you see an American Flag by a grave or some gently arranged flowers nearby and feel the breeze of the wind gently blowing near you, perhaps you will hear the faint whispers of the soldiers, sailors, Marines and air men and women saying “Earn this.” We have our freedom because of them. We have a remarkable country because of them. What we stand for is because of them. You and I can earn “this” not just by honoring them tomorrow on Memorial Day but also by living up to their values of sacrifice, patriotism and courage.

These are the values Paul speaks about in Romans. These are the values of a Christian when Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow me.”

In the name of God, creator, redeemer and sustainer. Amen.

Easter Day - Skip Windsor

Luke 24:1-12

The Fire in the Equation

The Lord is Risen! The Lord is Risen Indeed!

Not long ago, my son, my grandson and I visited the Museum of Science in Boston. Among the live exhibits, the three of us watched the lightning show in the Theatre of Electricity. We enjoyed a thrilling display of sparks, lightning bolts, and loud cracks that kept everyone wide-awake including dozing grandfathers!

For those of you who have never experienced the Theatre of Electricity you have to imagine that you are sitting beside the Wizard of Oz. There are complicated elongated panels with funny looking dials and brightly colored lights. There are coils that seem to snake around the podium that glisten silver.

There are two large domes called the Van de Graaf generator which produce sparks that travel to two smaller grounded spheres. The sparks fly when the voltage on the domes get big enough to ionize the air turning the generator from an insulator into a conductor. When that transformation happens it happens very quickly -- like 1/1000 of second. Bang. Zap. And it’s over. Everyone is wide-awake!

After the show, while my grandson wandered over to the mammoth control panel monitored by the Wizard of Oz, my son and I started talking about those things beyond our comprehension: electromagnetic fields, the force of gravity, black holes, the Big Bang. We concurred that there are some things that just cannot be explained away. I am reminded of a cartoon of two professors with one of them pointing at a blackboard scribbled with complex-looking equations. In the middle of the blackboard instead of an equal sign it has the words, “then a miracle occurs.” And the one professor is pointing at the words saying to the other one, “Can you explain this a little bit better?”

Today as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, Easter is the miracle in the equation. It is the “Something” that cannot be explained away. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, writes, that the miracle of Easter stands in the middle of a second Big Bang. It serves as an eighth day of creation when the atmosphere was divinely charged and the world was irrevocably changed.

Williams thinks of Easter as the fire in the equation; and I think that is an apt description of Easter as fire. It is about the Light: the light of creation, the first ray of daylight, and the radiant light of the Paschal Candle. The fire in the equation for us is the risen Christ. When He rose from the tomb truth, goodness, and hope rose with Him.

If Easter is about truth then Easter is about you and me. What we profess as truth shapes our understanding of things – even things such as resurrection. The Easter story is about the disciples’ initial understanding of the resurrection of Jesus. Was it true? And what truth shaped them to become the people they became?

In today’s Gospel reading from Luke the evangelist writes uncharacteristically even hesitantly. For those familiar with Luke’s Gospel know that he is a consummate storyteller. Only Luke includes the Parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. Only Luke highlights Jesus as a man of prayer and valorizes women as much as men in both his Gospel and in The Acts of the Apostles.

For those who read carefully the Easter text this morning you will find Luke use the word “but” five times. Like a boulder in the middle of the road this obstinate conjunction causes one to pause and take note. The narrative demands us, like the evangelist, to see that there are two competing stories being told at the same time. The stories are odds with one another.

One story recounts that the man Jesus, who some claimed as the Messiah, died –End of story. What happened on the cross crushed all their hopes and all their dreams. There was a hopeless finality to Good Friday. This was, and is, the rational and empirical story of Jesus of Nazareth. He lived and died a failure.

And this joyless and hopeless story is the enemy of the Easter Story. And yet it is a narrative that some people acknowledge today: Jesus was only a kind rabbi from Nazareth. He was a good and godly man and, at most, an interesting footnote in history. For some today, He is worth studying but not worth knowing.

The other story embedded in Luke is that something happened like an electrical charge that changed everything. Luke the physician, the man of science, is writing like one who can hardly believe the truth – But when they went in the tomb they found no body. But the men said, “He is not here but has risen.” But Peter saw the linens lying by themselves.

Luke the physician, the meticulous historian, surrenders all rational thinking to the truth as witnessed by the disciples: “Christ is alive!” “Remember how he told you in Galilee, remember how he told you on the holy mountain, and remember how he told you again before his entry into Jerusalem that he would die and on the third day rise again?” By remembering his promises, the disciples experienced a resurrection in their own lives that transformed them forever. All that Jesus spoke to them was true.

The second gift that rose with Jesus was goodness. All that Jesus said about the first shall be last and that last shall be first, about the meek shall inherit the kingdom of God, about loving your neighbor as yourself, and about being with His followers to the end of all time, was all true. His resurrection was his vindication about All that was good, all that was true and all that was beautiful was going to last forever through Him.

Tom Long, well-known preacher, tells the story of a young boy who was a great fan of both Capt. Kangaroo and Mister Rogers. The boy faithfully watched both television shows and one day it was announced that Mister Rogers would be paying a visit to the Capt. Kangaroo show.

The boy was ecstatic. Both of his heroes, together on the same show! Every morning the boy would ask, “Is it today that Mister Rogers will be on Capt. Kangaroo?”

Finally the great day arrived, and the whole family gathered around the television. There they were, Mister Rogers and Capt. Kangaroo together. The boy watched for a minute, but then, surprisingly, got up and wandered from the room.

Puzzled the father followed him and asked, “What is it, son? Anything wrong. “It’s too good,” the boy replied. “It’s just too good.”

Maybe that’s it. Maybe the news of the empty tomb, the news of the resurrection, the victory of Jesus’ victory over death is just to good to be true, too good to grasp all at once. Yet, we do not have to apprehend the gift of Easter all at once. The spiritual life is one of progressive revelation knowing that the goodness of God never ends.

And if God’s goodness is endless then Easter is also about hope rising. You and I live in a body of hope. It is an energizing field. It makes for a spiritually charged atmosphere bigger than we are. God gives us more hope than we can handle.

In the Risen Christ we are embraced in an electromagnetic field of love that connects us to all things and to all people. Just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we find that the power was within us all along – As Jesus said many times to his disciples, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” By Him, through Him and with Him, we are born to a new life that is ever new, ever fresh, ever young and ever connected.

After the monsoons and flooding we have experienced this past Lent, we look with hope to sunnier skies, drier basements and warmer weather. Might not that hope just be a glimmer of Easter? Signs of resurrection are all around us.

Looking outside on this beautiful Easter Day, it is worth concluding this Lent season and commencing this Easter Day with those famous words of the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, who wrote, “Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.”

Let us pray:

Almighty God, on this Day of Resurrection, you give us more hope than we can handle. We thank you for the promise of truth, the joy of goodness, and the gift of hope. This and more we ask through Jesus Christ our risen Lord. Amen.

Epiphany IV - Skip Windsor

The Timeless Virtue

We gather this morning at this one service to worship together as a church community. Afterwards, we all are encouraged to attend the church annual meeting downstairs in Fellowship Hall. During the meeting, we will vote for new lay leadership, listen to reports from members of the staff and vestry, learn about new emerging ministries, and hear about the financial condition of the church.

This past year was a difficult one for everyone. Institutions failed. People lost their jobs. Families tightened their belts. Liquidity was scarce. For many, it is still difficult; and tough times lie ahead for many. The same is true for churches everywhere. Christ Church was not immune from these storms either. As you will read in the annual report, the vestry cut the budget by over 20%. Parishioners dug deeper into their pockets to ensure that vital ministries stayed in place. For this, we can be thankful. Because of your generosity and our expense cutting, we maintained a balanced budget and even carried a small surplus forward into this year.

We turned a corner in 2009. Average Sunday attendance is up 4% while the national church saw attendance decrease. Our average pledges have increased from approximately $1750 to $1850 matching the national church average. We are blessed to have scores of newcomers join our church community who are bringing diverse gifts and talents with them. Several new ministries are emerging at Christ Church such as The Party People and The Energy Efficiency Committee. Our affiliate, Circle of Hope, continues to make strategic partnerships with temples and churches in Needham and is adding an arm for kids that will draw in another generation to learn about social justice and outreach.

Good things are happening. God is taking us places we never thought we would go. Yet, with these important ministries occurring, we must ask ourselves where are we going as a church? What does 2011 look like for us? What about the next five years? Where will we be? Where do we want to be? In the strategic planning report handed to the vestry in April, there were provocative questions raised. In the heart of the report were these comments,

“As a parish we will need to decide as we go forward whether we are satisfied with the current reduced programming levels or whether we can devise a plan to “grow” our financial base in order to support our prior level of activities. possibility would be to increase non-financial participation in the church so that we could do more with less income.”

I do not think anyone here today would disagree with me that we want to grow as a church. The question becomes more of one about what kind of church we want to grow into? As I look around the diocese, I see 188 churches seeking to discern their mission in a rapidly changing culture and society. No longer will new wine fit into old wineskins.

The tectonic plates of the world are changing everyday. The language we speak. The communications we use. The people we meet. The climate we experience. The institutions we count on. All is dynamic. We must define our mission if we are to grow and flourish in a rapidly changing world. Being clear about our mission will determine what kind of church we will become in the next five years.

We do not have to create a mission. There is no need. We have one given to us. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Christ gave it to His disciples as His last command. It is called The Great Commission,

“And Jesus came and spoke to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.’”

Go. Make disciples. Baptize men and women in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. I believe at Christ Church we do go out in the world to do ministry: in Needham, Boston and the wider world. I believe we do make disciples by inviting people to join our church and become part of the community. I believe that we do baptize bringing young children and adults into the Household of God.

But, to carry out the Great Commission is not simple. Not today. There are obstacles along the way as we seek to serve Christ loving our neighbor as ourselves. And the one I wish to highlight this morning is a rising factionalism and partisanship in the wider church and in the public square. I would call it the “New Tribalism.”

The tribalism of community I am talking about is analogous to our North American Indian tribes, who manifest a certain culture, and ethos based upon a common, shared, and collective memory. Such collective memory formed around the narratives and stories of a people gives the tribe, and each member of the tribe, a sense of identity, as well as, provides a context for making meaning about their lives and their shared destiny.

Tribalism still exists today. You and I are from tribes. Whether we call it the Windsor, Baker, or Jensen tribe, or the Needham, Westwood or Newton tribe, or the Episcopalian, Congregational or Unitarian tribe, or the Democratic or Republican tribe, or, yes, even the Red Sox or Yankee tribe, in some way we come from a tribe and more than one tribe. Shared language, common memory, and an understood sense of values forms the basis of tribalism. Tribalism defines and differentiates us from others and helps us to know who we are.

The New Testament tells us that Jesus was descended from one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus was a Jew, and more specifically, was a Nazarene Jew. In today’s Gospel lesson from Luke, we hear about Jesus’ rejection by his hometown people. His tribe rejects him. The late comedian, Rodney Dangerfield’s signature remark, “I get no respect,” would be one way to sum up today’s Gospel lesson.

Jesus came from Nazareth. It was his father, Joseph’s hometown. In today’s reading from Luke, Jesus is recognized as one their own. A local boy who was a skilled carpenter who later took over his father’s business after Joseph died. So when the local boy comes back to teach instead of to carve, the people become intrigued even complimenting him saying, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son who is doing remarkable things in Capernaum? He’s come home to do those same amazing feats here with us in Nazareth!”

Their acceptance quickly turns to anger and unrest when Jesus announces to them that no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. And adds a truth about what ultimately is at stake when he speaks to his townspeople: He recalls two examples in Israel’s history that hearken back to the earlier prophets – Elijah and Elisha – who reached beyond the people of Israel to welcome those who were most representative of the marginalized “Gentiles” or non-Jews. Elijah went to the unnamed widow in Sidon and Elisha healed the Syrian leper known as Naaman. The widow, in spite of famine and poverty did not give up on God or the words of the prophet Elijah. Naaman, who at first was reluctant to follow the words of the prophet Elisha, washed himself seven times in the Jordan and was healed of his leprosy. Both the widow of Sidon and the Syrian Naaman represented the “extreme other” to those in the synagogue crowd. Jesus used these two examples to drive home the point that the Good News of God in Christ was intended for all tribes – Jew and Gentile alike.

The life of Jesus was devoid of personal factionalism. It is true he was an observant Jew and identified himself as a rabbi. Yet His arguments and preaching were always against the Jewish and Roman authorities that sought to divide communities: poor from rich, Jew from Gentile, women from men. He opposed those in authority because of their narrow-minded self-interests. What Jesus was calling people to was a higher unifying loyalty that transcended all tribal and partisan loyalties: Loyalty to God.

Through his life, death and resurrection, Jesus shows how God is with us in the world. When we see how Jesus forgave sinners, invited the despised, healed the sick, spoke to the doubtful, and prayed to God, we apprehend not an idea but a real person who sought to reconcile all people together in their common humanity under the banner of love.

In the Epistle lesson we heard today from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, the familiar words take on a familiar resonance. We hear it read at weddings. But, a deeper reading leads us to note that Paul is making a diatribe against the cliques and factions that fought for turf in the Corinthian church. He presents the ideal virtue of a Christian community: Love. While some church factions valorized spiritual knowledge and prophecy, Paul says that even these gifts will pass away but love, love will abide. It defined the ideal of the Church. It defined the life in the Kingdom of God.

Inspired by the words of Paul, The words by the Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross-comes to mind, “In the twilight of our lives, we will be judged on how we have loved.”

Jesus’ call remains as fervent and persistent now as it did in his own day. You and I are called to a universal discipleship where compassion eclipses tribalism. This discipleship leads us to act on our faith in love and in action. Being disciples of God does not make us refugees from the issues of the day. Rather, it makes us go deeper into the injustices, the prejudices, and the problems of our time.

In the end, because of the world’s great needs, there is more that unites us than divides us. In Christ, we are called to be the Beloved Community of God. Each of us together forms the Body of Christ and “Who is our neighbor?” extends as far as our love.

The concreteness of this virtue of love I find most exquisitely in the Holy Eucharist. Through God’s sacrificial love in Jesus Christ, we become the Body of Christ. But, at Christ Church, I find the symbol of Christian love in another place, too, in this sanctuary.

There is never a moment before I leave this sanctuary when I don’t stop to gaze upon this majestic glass cross before us. It is truly unique and brightly beautiful. When the morning sun comes through the glass the colors of the cross seem to dance across the floor. I find it very comforting, inspiring and reassuring in times of concern or worry.

But there are other times, more times these days than most, when I see the cross as a prod. Prodding you and me forth fulfilling Great Commission to go. “Go. Go out from this place. Make disciples. Put my love into action and equip the saints for the work of ministry.”

My hope for us as we look ahead this year is that we may we never lose sight of the Cross and may we always give ourselves over to love.

Let us pray:

O God of unchangeable power and grace, give us the vision to see you and to serve you with Christ-like love. We do not know what a new day will bring but let us be ready in body, mind and spirit to heed your call. Let us go forth from this your church renewed and restored for the work of ministry. All this we ask in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Epiphany II - Peter Tierney

Poured out for Haiti
Psalm 36:5-10; John 2:1-11

“How priceless is your love, O God! Your people take refuge under the shadow of your wings.”

Last week, I announced that I would be preaching about spiritual gifts today, but some things have happened between last Sunday and this morning, and God sometimes has a way of telling us that we need to change our plans, no matter how well thought out. One of the ways that God uses to get our attention is when we encounter the same person, or idea, or thing multiple times in a short period, seemingly coincidentally—and that is what happened to me while planning for this sermon. I had looked at the readings for last week and this week some time ago, and decided that I would preach two sermons on the Holy Spirit, so I wasn’t planning to talk about today’s Gospel reading at all. Now, Pam and I sat down to plan the music for this service a few weeks ago, and it was Pam’s idea to use the music in our hymnal with Jewish roots for nearly all the hymns in this service, in honor of the wedding at Cana, which was of course a Jewish wedding. When I told Pam earlier this week that I wasn’t preaching about the wedding at Cana, she looked a little disappointed—that was sign number one. A day or two later, I happened to be reading a book, and the author referenced the story of Jesus changing water into wine—sign number two.

On Tuesday night, we received the word about the earthquake in Haiti. By Wednesday morning, reports of the full extent of the destruction had begun to reach us, and we heard directly from Fr. Kesner Ajax, who visited us here at Christ Church two years ago. It was when Fr. Kesner reported that the Episcopal Cathedral in Port-au-Prince had been reduced to rubble that I knew for sure that a sermon on spiritual gifts would have to wait. Because, you see, the walls of the sanctuary of Holy Trinity cathedral in Port-au-Prince were painted with the most amazing, brilliantly colored murals of biblical scenes, but these biblical stories were painted in a distinctly Haitian style, with Haitian people and with elements of Haitian culture—clothing, tools, customs—woven seamlessly into the paintings as a way of saying that the biblical world and the Haitian world are one: the days of Jesus are today, just as real for Haiti as they are for ancient Israel. These murals were national treasures—exquisite examples of Haitian religious art. I was in that Cathedral, looking at those murals just this past September, on our mission team’s first day in Haiti—a Sunday—and for me, the most beautiful and powerful and moving of those paintings was the mural depicting today’s Gospel story—Jesus’ miracle at the Wedding in Cana of Galilee. When I heard that the Cathedral had been destroyed in the earthquake, and I realized that no one else would ever see that mural of the Wedding at Cana, I knew that God wanted something different from me in this sermon than what I had planned.

The Russian author Dostoevsky wrote of Jesus’ miracle at the wedding of Cana that “It was not people’s grief, but their joy Christ visited. He worked his first miracle to help human gladness.” By sustaining the wine at the wedding, Jesus allowed the celebration to continue when it might have been cut short for lack of the cup of gladness. But isn’t this a strange and alien story for us to hear today, of all days, when the suffering of Haiti lies heavy on our hearts? Do we not need Jesus to visit our grief now and the grief of an entire nation? What is there to celebrate, when destruction has erased the Wedding of Cana from the walls of Holy Trinity Cathedral? What need is there for wine, when the people of Haiti are desperate for the water that Jesus started out with? Our hearts cry out: “Turn it back, O Lord, and give them the water to drink!”

The joy of the wedding feast does not fit our mood or our circumstances, and it might be completely out of place, if it were not for the ambivalence that marks Jesus’ mood in this Gospel. Jesus is reluctant to work this miracle, he is not ready to give the sign—when his mother tells him that the party has run out of wine, he says to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” Jesus knows that as soon as he gives this sign, as soon as he does this wondrous thing, his feet are set on a path that will lead him to his hour. That hour is the hour of the Cross, the hour of his death. The road that begins in Cana of Galilee is the road that ends at Golgotha—the wine that Jesus gives to the wedding feast is forever linked to the wine poured out from his body when the spear pierces his heart: “This is my blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Even in the joyous celebration of the wedding feast, there is a whiff of desolation. Our lives are rarely marked by a pure and unadulterated joy—they are a mixture of celebration and sadness.

But the reverse is also true, that joy and hope can linger and remain and grow, even in the most desolate and seemingly desperate times. When Jesus is hanging on the Cross, the life nearly gone from him, sensing that he has been abandoned by the God he has called Father all his life, he cries out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” It is a cry that we can imagine echoing through the streets of Port-au-Prince today. But on Jesus’ lips, this cry is more than a sign of desolation—it is a quotation from the 22nd psalm, the first line of that most piteous and heartbreaking of the songs of Israel. The psalm goes on, “Why are you so far from my cry and from the words of my distress? Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; by night as well, but I find no rest.” That is how the 22nd psalm begins, but I want you to hear how it ends, because the rest of the psalm could not have been far from Jesus’ mind. After rehearsing many unanswered pleas for God to save, the psalm takes a turn, declaring faith in God despite the certainty of death for the sake of the future. The final verses of the psalm end, “My soul shall live for God; my descendants shall serve him; they shall be known as the Lord’s for ever. They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn the saving deeds that he has done.” On Jesus’ lips, the desolate cry of the 22nd psalm is a statement of faith and hope, a cry from the heart that although God may not spare us from the time of trial, there is a future for the peaceable kingdom, there is a hope for generations yet unborn.

The God we worship is not a remote and distant God, sitting in the heavens passing judgment from afar. The God we worship, the God we remember today in our holy meal of bread and wine, is the crucified God, the God who has taken the pain and suffering of the world onto himself, and poured out his blood for our sake. The God we worship today is the risen Lord, the God who overcomes Death. Our God encompasses all things, from the joy of the Wedding feast to the suffering of the Cross to the triumph of the Resurrection. Our human lives are a mixture of these things—joy and suffering, desolation and consolation, and the lives of the people of Haiti are the same, even today. They are lives of faith and hope, even today.

You do not need to believe my word alone about this--I want to share you testimony from Haiti. These words are taken from an e-mail sent to us by Suzi Parker, a Presbyterian missionary who with her husband John is running the guesthouse in Leogane that Christ church’s team stays at when we are going to Lazile. That guesthouse was seriously damaged in the earthquake—John and Suzi’s apartment was destroyed. Suzi writes, “At night we sleep in the yard behind the hospital where the bandstand was. It has fallen, as has the Episcopal school. There are two to three hundred people who sleep in that field at night. They sing hymns until almost midnight, and we wake up to a church service, with hymns, a morning prayer, and the apostles’ creed. The evening sky is glorious. In the field, there is a real sense of community. I have never understood joy in the midst of suffering, but now I do. The caring I have seen, the help we have received from the Haitians, the evening songs and prayers are wonderful. The people will survive, though many will die. Please pray for us. And pray that we and the hospital can be of help to the people here.”

The psalmist says that in God is the well of life, and in God’s light we see light. But sometimes we do not see the light, sometimes all we can see are the shadows and darkness, and we have only the memory of what it is to see God’s light. Sometimes God hides. And in those times, having faith and hope means trusting that the shadows falling on us are the shadow of God’s wings covering us to protect us from a greater darkness, for there is no shadow without a light somewhere to cast it. I pray that this is so for the people of Haiti and for the people who are traveling to aid them—people of great faith and hope. “How priceless is your love, O God! Your people take refuge under the shadow of your wings. Continue your loving-kindness to those who know you, and your favor to those who are true of heart.” Amen.

Epiphany I - Peter Tierney

Burning with the Holy Spirit
Isaiah 43:1-7; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

"John answered all of them by saying, 'I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.'"

Here, in the words of John the Baptist, we are first introduced to the difference between the baptism that John administered and the baptism that Jesus administers: the baptism of John is a baptism with water, but the baptism of Jesus—the baptism of the Christian Church—is baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Now it is true that Jesus honors the baptism of John by being baptized himself with water by John’s hands, and also by making baptism with water the sign and means of Christian baptism, but make no mistake—even though Christians are baptized with water, the essential part of Christian baptism is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself emphasizes the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit when he teaches, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.”

In the book of Acts, once the apostles hear that the new converts in Samaria have not received the Holy Spirit, even though they have been baptized, they send Peter and John to pray for them and lay hands on them so that they will receive the Spirit. The conversion of the Samaritans is not complete without the presence of the Holy Spirit with them, and the author of Acts suggests that the reason the Samaritans had not received the Spirit was because “they had only been baptized in name of the Lord Jesus.” The connection between Christian baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit is so strong that even though baptism in the name of Jesus alone was permissible in the very earliest days, it came to be seen as deficient, and the practice of baptizing in the threefold name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit became the universal practice of the Christian Church.

So, all of that tells us that Jesus and the followers of Jesus baptize with the Holy Spirit, or call upon the Holy Spirit to complete the action begun in baptism, and it also tells us that Christians should value the presence of the Holy Spirit, but it doesn’t do much to tell us why the Holy Spirit is so important. What’s so great about the Holy Spirit anyway? What has the Holy Spirit done for us lately? I am convinced that one important clue that points us toward the answers to these questions lies in the other thing that John tells us Jesus will baptize with. Jesus baptizes, not only with the Holy Spirit—but with fire!

What does it mean to baptize with fire? Fire is not an element in Christian baptism—we don’t light babies on fire before dipping them in the font. You may have heard the expression “baptism by fire” used to describe the circumstances when someone is thrown into a particularly difficult situation that becomes an extreme test of their abilities. This idea of a trial by fire is one of the most frequent ways that fire is mentioned in the New Testament. Fire as a means of testing the purity of metals, fire that cleanses and cauterizes and purifies, fire that judges whether something is durable and will endure—that is how the New Testament speaks of fire.

Fire is also closely linked with the Holy Spirit and with the presence of God. In the Old Testament, God leads the people of Israel out of Egypt and through the desert in a pillar of fire by night, and when they reach Mount Sinai, “the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel,” and it was out of this fire that God spoke the Ten Commandments to Israel. Again, in the Acts of the Apostles, it is no coincidence that when the Holy Spirit descends upon the apostles at Pentecost, it appears in the form of tongues of fire. Fire is a sign and a symbol of God’s presence—which is one reason why we keep a flame constantly burning in our sanctuaries.

So we have these two aspects of fire connected to each other: fire as a sign of God’s presence, and fire that tests the mettle of what it surrounds. The Holy Spirit is a fire that both tests and purifies the people that it falls upon. The Spirit is the spirit of truth, and so it tests and divides truth from falsehood; the Spirit is the spirit of righteousness, and so it tests our actions, revealing what is good and what is wicked in the things we do and empowering us to do the good. Above all, the Spirit is the spirit of love, that burning fire of love that draws us together and tests our bonds to God and to each other, refining those relationships to make them even more truly beautiful and pure reflections of God’s own infinite beauty. The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Elsewhere in his Gospel, Luke records a somewhat cryptic sentence spoken by Jesus, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” The fire that Jesus is speaking of is this fire of the Holy Spirit, a fire that is meant to burn in the hearts of his disciples, a fire that will rage throughout the ages and test the world that God has made, burning away what is false, and wicked, and against God’s will for the world that he made in love. This is a fearsome fire, an awesome and terrible and relentless fire, a fire that Jesus means to share with those who will take up their cross and follow him. Jesus came to set each and every one of us on fire—he wants you to burn with the Spirit of God. There is an urgency and a great power in God’s mission, it is the same urgency that fire has as it latches onto anything that will burn and keep the fire going. This mission, the mission that Jesus shared with his disciples is the mission to love God and our neighbor truly, it is the mission to share the good news of God’s forgiveness in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and this mission that is powered by the burning flame of the Holy Spirit, which is given to us in baptism.

God wants us to burn with this mission; Jesus wants to set us on fire for God’s mission, the Holy Spirit has been sent to reach into us and draw forth our greatest energies and efforts to further God’s work in the world, to light a fire in us that will shine out and proclaim that God is here! God is here in us and between us and around us!

Next week, I will be preaching about some of the specific ways that the Holy Spirit acts in the Church to further God’s mission by granting spiritual gifts to disciples of Jesus, but for now, I want to leave you with one last observation—this time an important difference between fire and the Holy Spirit. Fire, as we know it, consumes the fuel that keeps it burning, until nothing is left. The Holy Spirit is not that kind of a fire—it does not rely on the power and the energy that is within us, but rather unlocks the depths of our energy, focuses it and sets it free. It is not so with other kinds of spirits—we can all think of examples of people who, caught up in a passionate spirit for human endeavors, end up consumed by that Spirit. Think of athletes who focus so much on sport that they destroy their bodies or lose their love for the game, or neglect their other commitments and relationships. Think of politicians who enter public life with the best of intentions, but succumb to the lure of power and influence. Think of financiers and investors who start who start off in business to make a living, but the pressure and the desire to make more and more money takes over and overrides their judgment and their sense of right and wrong. Think of religious zealots, who begin by following the leadings of the Spirit, but come to confuse their own thoughts and prejudices with the mind of God. In all of these cases, people are consumed by the fires of their own passions—but it will not be so if we are burning with the true Holy Spirit of God. Jesus wants us to burn, but he does not want us to burn out. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit and acting in accordance with God’s will, the work may be strenuous and difficult, but it will not be draining and tiresome, it will not burn us out.

God promises that when his people walk through the fire, they shall not be burnt, and the flame will not consume them. This is a promise that extends to the fire of the Holy Spirit as well. The image to remember is the image of God speaking out of the burning bush to Moses—what astonished Moses and got his attention was that the bush was not consumed by the flames. So it will be with us, if we have received the Holy Spirit of God—we will burn with a shining light that does not consume us, and God will speak out from us—perhaps in words, but also in our deeds. And in the power of the Spirit, we will find that God has given us the most rewarding work and the most blessed gift we will ever know.