Sudden Clarity (Last next before Lent, Year A)

Transfiguration by Sieger Köder

 Sudden Clarity

Last Sunday of Epiphany (Year A)
26 February 2017; 8 am Spoken Mass; 10 am Sung Mass

Sunday Last next before Lent (Transfiguration Sunday)
Homily Delivered at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon  

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Exodus 24:12-18; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9; Psalm 2

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen.

Transfiguration Sunday ends the season of Epiphany, or the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.  In a very real way, the scene here is what we call in popular parlance an epiphany, a moment of clarity when all of a sudden we see things as they really are. 

We all have seen such a moment of clarity, both good and bad.  It is when you realize you have found the love of your life.  It is when a person in discernment comes to know what it is that God is calling her to.  It is when you suddenly are sure what your passion in life or work is.  It is what makes a destructive drunk "hit bottom" and begin to reach out for help.  It is when you realize you are in a destructive relationship and need to break it off.  It is when a diagnostician suddenly puts together all the symptoms, pathology, and life details of the patient and intuitively knows what disease she is dealing with.  It is when a scientist suddenly recognizes the pattern and comes up with a new hypothesis or theory.  It is when, of a sudden, we know that we love and trust God. 

But this epiphany—God’s glory shining in the face of Jesus—overwhelms Peter.  Seeing the two great icons of the Jewish tradition alongside Jesus—Moses for the Law and Elijah for the Prophets—he thinks it is they who are giving his friend and teacher this new power and glory.  He wants to set up three little shrines to commemorate it.   He does not realize this is a revelation of how Jesus has always been, just hidden.

Peter is thinking about Succoth (tabernacles, or booths), temporary shelters set up for the duration of the major harvest festival.  They stood for the tents of Israel during the 40 years of wandering in the desert while being fed on the Manna, the bread from Heaven, and symbolized human reliance on God, an appropriate sentiment for a harvest festival.  The prophet Zechariah had said that when the Messiah came, all the nations of the earth would go in pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the Succoth Festival and build such Booths as commanded by Moses.  God would punish any nation not doing by withholding the rain and sending drought, the punishment that Elijah had famously brought on King Ahab for three years (Zech 14:16-18; Exod 23:16; 34:22; 2 Kings 17).  

Peter wants to build the Succoth for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah to show that Jesus is another great figure in his religion, perhaps even the Messiah who would force all Gentiles to become Jews by invoking Elijah’s curse of drought. 

But God intervenes and sets Peter straight.  A light-filled cloud appears and covers everything. A voice identifies Jesus as the first thing, the real item. ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to what he says!’   The cloud disappears, and all that remains is Jesus himself.  Moses and Elijah have dropped from view. 

The transfiguration is a moment of sudden clarity for the disciples that they don’t fully “get” until after the resurrection: the realization, in the words of John’s Gospel, that “Whoever has seen [Jesus] has seen the Father.” 

As today’s epistle puts it on the lips of St. Peter: “we have been eyewitnesses of God’s majesty,” and “have heard the voice from heaven saying ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’”  For this reason, “we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed” (the King James here has “the more sure word of prophecy”).  That is, we understand the inner meaning and direction of the prophets’ words, having seen the Glory of God directly revealed in Jesus.   And this being so, “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”  Paul elsewhere says that “gazing upon the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus” makes us ourselves undergo transfiguration or metamorphosis, changing from glory into glory, closer and closer to Jesus.   

How can we “be attentive to” this epiphany, this revelation, this moment of sudden clarity when the early disciples first had an inkling of who Jesus truly was?  How do we “gaze upon the face of Jesus?” 

It is important to reflect on our Lord and Savior often and regularly.  That is why daily prayer and scripture reading is an essential part of any Christian’s intentional spiritual discipline.  Regular Church attendance helps, but in gazing upon the Lord's glory, we must be the Church, not simply attend Church.  It is not just a passive act of admiration.  Following Jesus in doing corporeal acts of mercy, in serving our fellows, in standing with the outcast, the downtrodden, and the sick--these give us an experience of who Jesus is and what he does. 

Given the stresses of life, it is easy to lose heart.  It is easy to believe that people cannot change, that we cannot change.  But the miracle and mystery of our faith is this—we can change because God promises to change us.  In the Apostles’ Creed we affirm that we believe in “the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”  This makes no sense at all if you don’t believe that God is at work transforming us, and that we shall be changed. 

Just as God sent that shining cloud to drive away Peter’s silly preconceptions and plans, God works with us as we look into the glorious face of Jesus and try to hear his voice.   God changes us.

Such change is sometimes hard, so hard that at times we do not know whether we will be able to bear it.  At other times it is a relief, as easy as taking off a heavy winter coat in the summer heat.  

When Paul says this turns us into "the image of Christ" he is not saying it removes our individuality.  What he describes is a transformation into our true selves, the individual people God intended when He created each of us, with all that makes us who we are, but absent the brokenness that we so often mistake for what makes us who we are. 

One of the greatest foundation stones of my personal faith is the experience of seeing transformed brothers and sisters around us, and seeing ourselves over the years as God works with us and changes us.  It doesn’t mean we are perfect, only that God is making progress in finishing his creation in us.   In the words of the classic line from African-American preaching quoted often by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Lord, I know I ain't what I outta be.  And I know I ain't what I'm gonna be.  But thank God Almighty, I ain't what I was!”

Charles Wesley in one of his hymns summed it up this way--

Finish then, thy new creation,
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in Thee:
Changed from glory into glory,
'Till in heaven we take our place.
'Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.  

It is not just in heaven when all of God's creation is done that this happens.  As we are transformed here and now, quickly or slowly, it makes us look around us in amazement at tokens of God's love about us, ourselves experience sudden clarity.  And then we gaze all the more, "lost in wonder, love, and praise," on the author and pioneer of it all. 

  

Thanks be to God.

Glimpses of Beauty (midweek)

Glimpses of Beauty

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

February 22, 2017

As I write, it is snowing heavily in Ashland, and the heavy bright snow and icy slush are accumulating on the ground ever deeper.  Earlier in last week, we saw rainstorms in sunshine, and multiple rainbows each day.  Then on Friday morning, as the sun was breaking out bright and glorious in the East by Pompadour and Pilot Rocks, the rain continued heavy.  From where I was at my house, I could see no rainbow, because the rain was between me and the sun.  But suddenly I realized:  people at Mountain Meadows, or up on the hills east of the city, looking toward us, would have seen a glorious rainbow.  In fact, our house would have been at the proverbial pot of gold where the rainbow touched the earth.  It was all a matter of perspective, of the place from where you were looking. 

 As we prepare to begin Lent next week, it is important to reflect on the beauty in our life, on the scenes where we see God’s hand at work, or at least which give us grounds for thanks and hope.    All creation, ourselves included, comes from our loving God, and God’s beauty and love is reflected in us and the world.  If we have distorted the image of God in us—and we all in one degree or another do distort God’s image in us—or if we have abused creation, sometimes we find ourselves in a place where it is hard to see the light and beauty of God.  But again, it is all a matter of perspective.  Looked at from another angle, that rainbow might just be surrounding us.

Lent helps us change perspectives, to see clearly the distortions, but also to see the light of God, sometimes hidden but ever present in us and others.  Our Lenten communal practice this year at Trinity “Finding our Voice” is to try to help us find our own grounding, and be able to tell our own stories of faith, thanks, and hope so that we might help ourselves and others change perspectives and see beauty more clearly too. 

Coming to Church, hearing the old, old stories, regular prayer and meditation, and receiving the Holy Eucharist—these all are ways to help us shift perspectives.  The following poem by Mary Oliver describes it well. 

The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist
By Mary Oliver

Something has happened
to the bread
and the wine.

They have been blessed.
What now?
The body leans forward

to receive the gift
from the priest’s hand,
then the chalice.

They are something else now
from what they were
before this began.

I want
to see Jesus
maybe in the clouds

or on the shore,
just walking,
beautiful man

and clearly
someone else
besides.

On the hard days
I ask myself
if I ever will.

Also there are times
my body whispers to me
that I have.

Grace and peace,  Fr. Tony+

Perfectly Compassionate (Epiphany 7A)

Perfectly Compassionate

 19 February 2011

Seventh Sunday After Epiphany Year A

homily given by the Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP. Ph.D.

8 am said and 10 am sung Mass

Trinity Parish Church, Ashland Oregon 

Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23; Matthew 5:38-48; Psalm 119:33-40

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

“Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you, so you may be children of your Father in heaven.  For he gives the blessing of sunshine and rain on both the evil and the righteous alike… Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” 

The Greek word here for “perfect” is teleios.  This means “in conformity with your telos,” or intended purpose.  Rather than primarily meaning “without defect or flaw,” it means “in accordance with what God intended when he created you.”  The Aramaic word that Jesus probably actually used, tam, had roughly the same semantic scope.  The point is fullness of life, shalom, in keeping with all of the intentions of the good and loving Creator who made us “in his own image.”  Just as God gives the blessing of rain to good and bad alike, so should we, who bear God’s image, reflect God’s beneficence and intend good things for all our fellow creatures who bear his image.  In order to be the person God intends, we need to surpass “fair,” go beyond mere “justice.”  We need to have the beneficence and compassion of the one in whose image we are made.  It's in today's Hebrew Scripture lesson:  be holy, as God is holy.  And what does that mean practically, don't be stingy.  Don't hold tightly onto what is yours.  Let your fields go ungleaned, your trees not completely harvested, so poor people might have some too.  Be generous as God is generous.  

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’”  Jesus is quoting here from the Torah’s rule that vendettas and vengeful escalation of violence should not be pursued, the lex talionis or the law of measured retaliation. Wherever harm is committed—whether intentional (Leviticus 24:20) or deliberate (Exodus 21:24)—the Law said the response was not to surpass the original harm.  You could put out the eye of someone who had put someone else’s eye out (an "eye for an eye") but not take their life.   The principle is one of proportional response, and of punishment fitting the crime, and embodies what the Torah sees as justice (Deuteronomy 19:21). 

But as Ghandi later taught:  “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves the whole world blind and toothless.”  Jesus here says we should not respond to violence with violence.  Jesus proposes another strategy:  overcome evil with good.  The idea is developed and made explicit in the doctrine of Satyagraha, or Truth Force, taught by Gandhi.  It is also present in the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s program of peaceful active resistance or direct action.  The goal is to overwhelm the evildoer by an exposing of the evil through a show of good.  In the shame-based society in which Jesus lived, he advised that we respond to humiliation by shaming those who abuse power.  We should respond to unjust loss of face by forcing a just loss of face.  And this is done precisely through the mechanism of not stooping to the level of the abuser.  

Walter Wink (in Naming the Powers) noted a crucial detail in the text—“if someone strikes you on the right cheek.”  In that society, you only would have used your right hand for interacting with others.  So mentioning the fact that it is the right cheek that is being struck implies a haughty overlord giving a brutal but dismissive backhanded blow to someone seen as much lower in the social pecking order.  Jesus says “Don’t strike them back.  Instead, stand up tall.  Force them to use their open palm on your left cheek as they would a social equal.” 

Jesus uses a second example of his strategy for engaging people with God-like good will.    “If a creditor sues you for your outer garment, give him your inner garment as well.”    The outer garment was used for warmth and as a cover at night.  The inner garment could be worn alone without shame, but there were no underclothes beneath it.   By saying “throw in your inner garment as well,” Jesus was saying “Strip naked before the creditor; Shame him before all and reveal the true nature what is going on:  an exploitative system of large landowners forcing all small farmers off their land.”  (It was only because these ancient middle-easterners “went commando” that he could argue for such “guerrilla theater.”)

The third example Jesus gives is being compelled to carry baggage for the Roman Army.  The Roman Military had the right to force local people to carry their substantial baggage.  Remember how in the Passion narrative they simply compel a passerby—Simon of Cyrene—to carry the crossbeam for Jesus’ cruxifixion when Jesus himself collapses under the task.   But abuse of this right had led to deep anti-Roman sentiment and riots by people stranded far from home.  So the Romans set a limit: only one mile, a thousand broad paces, was allowed.  Punishments were meted out to Roman legionaries who broke this rule and provoked unrest.  “If you are impressed to carry baggage a mile, walk on another mile as well.”  One can imagine the humorous situation of the soldiers, afraid of breaking regulations and being punished, begging with a head-strong follower of Jesus to please lay down his load after the required 1,000 steps.  Again, a demeaning insult is turned on its head by an aggressive, but peaceful act. 

Jesus here is teaching that God is above the fray in some ways, but very actively involved in others.  And we must be similarly detached (not following a gut instinct to react in kind) but all the while very, very actively engaged. 

The reason for this is simple.  The opposite of love is not hate.  The opposite of love is cold, uncaring indifference.  Jesus wants us engaged and actively responding to evil with the same active love of the loving, but sometimes bothersome God whose image reveals our true end, our telos.  Being perfect means neither to hate nor to be indifferent.  It means being full of burning, attractive, painful love. 

A common and traditional way of seeing Jesus in these verses is thinking that he taught his disciples to be docile and accepting victims of abuse.  If that were so, one of the few historical facts that we actually know with certainty about his life—his execution at the hands of the Roman authorities—makes little sense.  If he taught gentle and tidy submission to all authority, even abusive authority working against God’s purposes, it is highly unlikely the Romans would have used crucifixion to kill him.  This particularly brutal and refined form of public torture and slow suffocation was the punishment they reserved for those found guilty of sedition and rebellion, a charge that is certainly implied by the title they fixed over Jesus’ writhing nailed body, “King of the Jews.”   Had Jesus simply taught acceptance and peaceful submission, the Romans probably would have let him pass him as an odd, but welcome voice that helped them maintain control of their restive Empire.  But that was not the case.  They basically put him to death for fomenting social disorder, for subverting in sayings like these the basic order of an Empire.  The Romans put Jesus to death because he taught that the value of each of every person was greater than the need to maintain proper Primate grooming rituals in a military dictatorship.  

We are all God’s creatures and all bear God’s image, no matter how we may have distorted and twisted it, including our enemies. We are all in this together.  God loves us, each and every one.  So we must learn to love each other.  Not pretend to love each other.  Not practice passive aggression as we despise the other.  Not silently disengage and passively submit, detached, from the abuses others subject us to.  But love.  Have compassion. Love as God loves, which means sometimes being a pain in the neck and almost always means challenging the beloved.

 

Today’s collect says it all:  “O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you.” 

May we be perfectly compassionate, as our Father in heaven. 

In the name of Christ, Amen.   

Polarities and Spectra

 The Beatific Vision - from the Hours of Étienne Chevalier, 1452-60

Polarities and Spectra

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

February 15, 2017

“[Jesus] said to them, ‘I watched Satan fall

from heaven like a flash of lightning.’” Luke 10:18

 There is a paraphrased quote from Albert Einstein often used in human resource management and motivational circles:  “No problem can be solved by using the same thinking that produced the problem.”   The idea is that in order to truly get a handle on a problem, you have to break out of the box of thinking in which the problem was framed and recognized.   A common thread in contemplative and mystical thought in Christianity and other traditions is the need to break away from dualistic thinking, thinking in polarities of either/or.  Meister Eckhart says it, as do Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, and St. John of the Cross, in one way or another:  to enter the heart and mind of God, who is one in three, we must leave the realm of twos, of binary thought, of us/them, good/evil, black/white, sacred/profane, male/female, and spirit/body.  Coming into unity or a monad, or embracing true diversity or a spectrum (that ideally turns back on into itself) is key to breaking away from the inquietude and trouble of duality. 

Jesus taught this as well.  This is the thinking behind his beatitudes, where opposites are seen as one, in his puzzling dictum that we must lose our life to find it, as well as his famous quote at the return of his disciples from their missions, when he says he sees Satan fall from heaven.  Remember, the word Satan is a Semitic word that means “the opponent” or “the accuser.” The work Jesus has given us who follow him is to bring reconciliation, or joining of what was once seen as opposites. 

When Hebrew scripture talks about opposites, it very often means everything in between as well:  “may he bless you in your coming in and your going out, in your sleeping and your waking, in your life and in your death” means “may he bless you always.”  When it says “God created human beings, male and female” it means God created men, women, and every person who is in between or beyond this dichotomy.  So abandoning dualistic thinking does not just mean thinking in unities, but also in infinite gradations. 

When we talk about our beliefs and doctrines, it is important to remember that often the question is not either/or, but rather both/and.  So it is not grace vs. works, but grace and works.  It is not original sin vs. original blessing, but both blessing and flaw in creation. 

Karl Jung teaches that we must recognize and embrace both our light and shadow selves if we are to be fully integrated and healthy.  Holding the tension of the opposite, not choosing one or the other or denying its reality, is the only way to truly find ourselves and find abundance in our lives.   

This spirituality of monism and plurality rather than duality is an essential part of the comprehensiveness of the Episcopal branch of the Jesus movement, which is both catholic and reformed. 

Grace and peace,  Fr. Tony+ 

Rootedness

 

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

Rootedness

February 8, 2017

Here in post-modern America, with its wide diversity of religious and non-religious traditions, it is always a temptation to simply “shop religion” and blend one’s own mix of spiritualities.   In a landscape of radical diversity, all religious options seem equally valid, valuable, and true, with the exception of views that exclude or subordinate others, or claim unique truth or authenticity.   This often finds expression in a consumer’s approach to religious belief:  pick and choose those things of religion—any religion—that appeal to you, that suit you, and moosh them all together into your particular faith.  “I’m spiritual but not religious” is a common tag line of such boutique faith.  A little bit of Christianity, of pre-Christian earth religions, of Buddhism, of mystic Islam or Judaism, stripped of their authoritative claims or difficult doctrines, of their craziness, and you can arrive at a pleasant blend all your own, like some customized pipe tobacco or drug stash.

To those who think that this sounds perfectly reasonable, it is important to remember wise words from the Dalai Lama.  He says that if you take a little of this faith and mix it with a little of that one, you have neither the one nor the other and cannot be properly formed by either. You never will sink your roots deeply enough into a single tradition to truly grow and mature spiritually.  It is only when you sink your roots deep, with an open heart and mind, and acquire some spiritual maturity that you can “branch out” and truly enjoy the fruits of another tradition.  “If you are Christian it is better to develop spiritually within your religion and be a genuine, good Christian. If you are a Buddhist, be a genuine Buddhist.” (H.H. the Dalai Lama, The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus, p. 46).

Many of us are used to criticisms from the right about branching out:  “HERESY!”  “HERETIC!”   But there is also a criticism from the left, and it may be more valid:  cultural appropriation.  This is when someone from a position of privilege (an imperialist power, a predominant race or gender) takes objects, practices, and ideas that are considered holy from traditions and communities that have been on the receiving end of privilege’s power and imperialist incursions, and strips them of their context and setting, and then pretends to make them your own.   Making a mere house decoration in America of a holy object from India, China, or Indonesia would be an obvious example.  A less obvious, but every much as problematic example is the use of  rituals or ritual objects and clothing from one tradition in one’s own. 

The difference between such legitimate branching our and mere slumming is how willing one is to take on deeply the assumptions, disciplines, and claims of the borrowed object or practice.  

Our Lord teaches us to be open to the new and unexpected, and to search for the treasure buried in the field of our hearts.  That’s why he uses parables and stories.  But he places this in a context of a tradition of teaching and practice in community (church), or what Buddhists call Dharma within Sangha.   It’s why he remains deeply Jewish, albeit marginally so, to the end of his life.  

This, for me, is why I try to preach the actual texts of scripture.  It is why I try to conform to tradition and the heritage of our faith community.  It is why I prefer worship in very ancient and well-used forms.  It is why the Prayer Book matters so much for me, and why I gladly accept the term “catholic” and “apostolic” to describe my faith.  It is also why I say and hear confession regularly, and have a spiritual director.    It is also why at one point of my life I took vows and served as a Buddhist monk for 30 days.  It is why I am a vowed religious in the Anglican tradition today.  

It is also why I welcome new things and innovative, progressive blendings, when these are intentional, respectful and deeply borrowing, and within community.  

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+

Break Every Yoke (Epiphany 5A)

Break Every Yoke

5 February 2017

Fifth Sunday After Epiphany Year A

Homily preached at 9:00 a.m. Sung Eucharist

Trinity Episcopal Church, Ashland Oregon

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP. Ph.D.

Isaiah 58:1-9a, (9b-12); Psalm 112:1-9, (10); 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, (13-16); Matthew 5:13-20

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

In today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us to be light and salt.  The Isaiah passage tells us one of the ways, perhaps the most central way, we can do so. It tells us how to become repairers of the breach, how to make our country "great again." 

Social justice is a major theme of the Bible.  If you are talking just in terms of number of verses mentioning things, the Bible is much more concerned with how we establish fairness and decency in our laws and in our economy, and how we treat the oppressed, the excluded, and the poor, than it is about most other things. 

In the Hebrew Scripture, God’s people are defined by their past experience of oppression.  Deuteronomy preserves this early liturgical fragment:

My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, subjecting us to harsh labor. Then we cried out to Yahweh … [who] brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders.  He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey (Deut. 26:5-9).

Again and again, the prophets call the people to turn back from their own oppression of others, reminding them, “You too were slaves in Egypt.”  

Again and again, they say we must take particular care of the wretched of the earth, the poor, orphans, widows. Providing a fair playing field and then ignoring those who do not succeed is not enough.  We must see the poor, note their needs, and take care of them.   

An underlying idea is that we must treat others as we would want to be treated.   Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, is God of rich and poor alike, and is particularly concerned with the poor because the poor need him most.  There are right and wrong ways of behaving, standards of common decency.  We must not exploit or take advantage of the weak, ignore them or turn a hard heart to their pleas, nor degrade or violate their human dignity.  The holiness of Yahweh requires his demands on his people in this regard:  

Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.  Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless ...  If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it by sunset, because that cloak is the only covering your neighbor has. What else can they sleep in? When they cry out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.  (Exodus 22:21-27)

Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.  (Exodus 23:9)

For three sins of Israel,
   even for four, I will not relent.
They sell the innocent for silver,
   and the needy for a pair of sandals.
They trample on the heads of the poor
   as on the dust of the ground
   and deny justice to the oppressed.
 (Amos 2:6-7)

Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt … When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains….  When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains…. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt (Deut. 24:17-22; cf. Lev. 19:19-20).

Yahweh is different from the gods of the other nations because he cares for the poor.  The Philistine god Baal cares for winners, the rich and the powerful.  Yahweh cares for losers, the dispossessed, and aliens.  The Philistine goddess Astarte cares for the sexually desirable and fertile. Yahweh makes the infertile woman a mother of children.  The Assyrian god Ashur rewards the militarily powerful and cruel.  Yahweh defends the defenseless.   

In contrast to gods who personify wealth, power, and fertility, Yahweh is God of all, of rich and poor alike:

I know that Yahweh will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and justice for the poor. (Ps. 140:12).

[God] defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you…  (Deut. 10:18; see also Isa. 25:4; Psalm 10:14; Isa. 41:17).

Because God is compassionate he demands that we be compassionate too:

If there is a poor man among you, … you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks. (Deut. 15:7)

When you have finished paying the complete tithe … you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan and the widow, that they may eat … and be satisfied. (Deut. 26:12)

Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor. Also do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger, the orphan, or the widow; and do not shed innocent blood in this place. (Jer. 22:3)

Jesus and John the Baptist teach this; so do St. Paul and St. James.  It is found on nearly every page of the Bible.  The message is simple, but insistent: help those in need.   Give them material support and take up their cause.  It's not at all hard to understand; it’s just hard to do.  We must do it as individuals.  Government has a role as well:

 [You kings,] open your mouth for those unable to speak, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy”.  (Prov. 31:8-10) 

All these texts are unequivocal.  There are no excuses or exceptions.  None tell us to help the poor only if they are hard working, moral, or have documented residence status.  None say help the poor “when you feel you can” or “once of twice a year.” 

In the unfortunate politics of identity of our age, people often are urged to vote their values.  “How would Jesus vote?” usually means vote for people who agree with you.  But if you wanted to be a Biblical one-issue voter, you’d do well to make that one issue serving the poor.

I am not saying here that one party has a monopoly on justice and programs that respond to this Biblical call.  None of these passages is clear in terms of saying what way of helping the poor is the most effective, the most appropriate, with the broadest good.   There is the risk of hurting the poor with our help, of making them dependent, of what has been called “toxic charity.”  But even the most basic Biblical requirements demand that we work for the good of the poor, listen to them, and certainly never dehumanize or bully them or be harsh with them.

It is not enough just to give help a little.  We are also called to “plead the cause” of the poor, i.e., defend their interests and advocate their cause.  Do you speak up for the poor or marginalized in your work place, your school, your church, your community, and your political party?

The poor are real people.  The oppressed are real people.  It is sometimes too easy to filter them out of our vision.  If they are a different color from us, speak a different language, have different culture or morals, we can perhaps say they are not deserving of our attention or our help.  But would you like to go before the Almighty and explain how you did not help someone in need because they were different from you?  Isn’t that the very point of God’s love of the poor?  He wants us to help them because they are different from us.  He wants us to help them because they are undeserving.  God gives the blessings of rain and sunshine on both the righteous and the unrighteous, says Jesus, and we should be as perfect in that as he is (Matt. 5:43-48). 

Are you unwilling to help someone because that person is an “illegal alien?”  Can you imagine having to explain such thinking and feeling to God?  The very phrase suggests that an entire class of human beings is “illegal” and thus not worthy of compassion. 

To such thinking, the Bible tells us, “Care for the foreigner in your midst, because you too were once foreigners.”  Helping others in need merely because they are in need is a central demand of our faith.  It is just that simple.  It is just that simple.  

The prophet Ezekiel says that the sin that brought God’s condemnation on Sodom and Gomorrah was ignoring the needs of the poor in the midst of abundance: 

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food, and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it. (Ezek. 16:49-51) 

Social Justice is a biblical doctrine, and anyone who claims to follow the Bible must be willing to work for social justice.  Anyone who truly wants their faith and actions to be grounded in the Bible will make it a major part of their efforts.   

You are the light of the world, the salt of the earth.  Loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke, let the oppressed go free, break every yoke. Remove the pointing finger, the bad-mouthing.  Share your bread with the hungry, share your house with the homeless.  Welcome the refugee, the alien.  When you see someone with inadequate clothing, cover them.  Help the poor and oppressed, and take up their cause.

In the name of Christ, Amen. 

Growing Light (Candlemas)

Growing Light

(Candlemas—the Feast of the Presentation)
2 February 2017 

5 p.m. Sung Mass with Candle-lit Procession

& Blessings of Candles, Wicks, and Lamp Oils

Homily Delivered at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon

Malachi 3:1-4; Psalm 84; Hebrews 2:14-28; Luke 2:22-40

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

T.S. Eliot’s poem “Little Gidding” in The Four Quartets begins with these words: 

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror ...

In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul's sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time's covenant. ...

Eliot is describing here unseasonable bits of warm weather in the middle of the winter, something that we have been seeing here in Ashland occasionally in the last weeks.  A “January thaw” or “a sunny groundhog’s day” are the opposite of “Indian summer.”  In the autumn, a brief bit of unseasonably warm weather recalls the heat of summer.   But warmth and sunshine now draws our minds to the spring that is coming.  Eliot compares this to a person’s spiritual awakening to the mystery of grace at a dark time in life.  Both untimely seasons, whether climatological or spiritual, are seen here as “sempiternal,” partaking both of time and timelessness, of now and eternity, of “time’s covenant” and “God’s.” 

I find myself hungry for light at this time of year.  A bright and warm day brightens and warms me.  This hunger for light and warmth, and desire for Spring, is what lies behind the popular superstition about groundhogs on February 2:  if it is warm and sunny enough for them to see their shadow, the winter will come back with a vengeance.  But if it is cold and dark, an early spring will arrive.  In the words of the old rhyme,

If Candlemas be fair and bright

Winter will have another fight.
If Candlemas brings cloud and rain,
Winter then won't come again.

Today, February 2, is 40 days from December 25.   In strict Jewish Law, a woman goes into semi-seclusion for 40 days after giving birth to a son.  It is thus today that we celebrate the coming of Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus to offer sacrifice at the Temple at Jerusalem.   There, the elderly Simeon and the prophet Anna welcome them and express joy at Jesus’ coming.  They have been “awaiting the Consolation of Israel,” the moment God would act to set all things right.  They recognize in this baby the great light, the fire of the Day of the Lord that would burn away all that was wrong with the world.  Simeon bursts out into a song of gratitude: “Thank God, now I can die in peace!”  It is the Nunc Dimittis that we regularly say or sing during our evening prayers:

Lord God, you now have set your servant free, 

to go in peace according to your word.

Mine eyes have seen the Savior, Christ the Lord 

prepared by you for all the world to see; 

a light for nations lost in darkest night, 

the glory of your people, and their light. 

This image of light in the Gospel reading was once reflected in the Hebrew Scriptures reading for this festival, the prophet Zephaniah’s grim description of how hard it will be for the complacent to escape the Coming Day of the Lord: 

“At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps to punish the complacent,
   who linger like the dregs of wine in a cup,
thinking, ‘The LORD can do nothing,
   either good or bad.’” (Zephaniah 1:12)

Because of the line, "I will search Jerusalem with lamps," the day was marked with a candle-lit procession, the blessing of the candles to be used in Church in the coming year, and was called Candlemas.  Included in the candles to be blessed was the year’s Pascal Candle, to be lit at the Great Vigil of Easter and then used in all baptisms and funerals.  

Regardless of fickle local weather patterns, here in the Northern Hemisphere, the days have already clearly started to get longer.  As Allan Miles has explained to me, the waning and growth of light and the length of day does not occur in an arithmetic straight line, but rather a calculus-described wave pattern.  Now, about one third of the way between December 21, the winter solstice with its longest night, and June 21, the spring solstice with its longest day, is when the arc takes off and light really begins to grow.  Soon it will be Lent, a season named for the fact that the days lengthen now.

Buds on the trees and shrubs are starting to swell, harbinger of spring even if weather turns cold again.  

There is a terrible irony is this.  This is also a season when we see a lot of deaths of our elderly parishioners.  Every year, there seems to be a spate of deaths among our elders starting just before Candlemas’ “Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace” and lasting through the Easter season.  They seem to get through the holidays and the New Year, only to have their bodies give out in the early to late spring.   This demographic quirk should remind us that even as spring and the renewal of the natural life about us gets closer, we ourselves as individuals are closer to our own deaths than ever before.  That’s just the nature of our lives.  We all die, and any passage of time brings us all inevitably closer to our common end.

Just as the astronomical days grow longer, we will be reminded soon on Ash Wednesday in stark terms that our anatomical days grow shorter. Just as the buds begin to swell and the first hints of green plants appear, our brows will be smudged with ashes, the remnants of dead plants from last year.  We will be told the truth that we would like to forget, “Remember you are but dust, and unto dust you shall return.”   Remember that there is darkness about, even in midst of the return of the natural light. 

Sisters and brothers, Trinity family, with the very ancient ritual of light we have celebrated today, where we try to chase away the dark and cold of winter, we are reminded of the Light of Christ, and joy of coming Easter.  We are told to prepare for the lengthening days around us even as our own allotted time here shortens by seeking the One True Light. 

May we be like Anna and Simeon, who persevered in hope, and recognized God when God acted.  They did not despair and give up on the light.  They did not focus on the blindness and darkness around them, but saw God’s love and action in this newborn baby.  They did not hope for a day of vengeance, of wrath, of burning, or of settling of scores through military might, but rather recognized God’s consolation and welcome, through the simple and everyday presence of this particular baby, brought to God’s Temple by this particular Mother.   They saw in this Child’s birth the fulfillment of their hopes for a setting of things aright.  May we also so await God’s consolation, and rejoice in the dawning of God’s Light.  

In the name of Christ,  Amen.