Author: Rosemary Lovelace

Last Sunday after Epiphany – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Gospel: Luke 9:28-36

Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning and welcome to Holy Family as we observe the last Sunday in Epiphany, and hear the story of a mountain top gathering replete with sleep deprived disciples, saints of old, and a dazzling light show. It is a story guaranteed to mystify and enchant all ages, from children to those not quite so young. Vicky and I fall into the latter category, and now that we are grandparents of 7 year-old twins, Jack and Alice, and a six year-old granddaughter, Sophia, and two year-old Georgie, we have been re-acquainting ourselves with children’s films and books, many of which are, I suspect, meant for grownups too. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast experienced a revival of sorts with Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame as Belle, the benevolent bibliophile who learns to love the beast and sees humanity hidden beneath his outward appearance. It is a film about a transfiguration of sorts, with themes of integration on our journey to wholeness. And if we use our imagination, we can see the glorious appearance of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus in this Lukan Gospel passage as being a little bit like the Beast’s transfiguration at the end of the film, when he is lifted by mysterious forces and enveloped in light that erupts out from him in this moment of transformation. This is the stuff of Hollywood, of course, and we do love stories about change and renewal.

On the other hand, in a sense, the Transfiguration in Luke is NOT the same as the climax of the story in Beauty and the Beast. Rather, it’s a little more like the moment Princess Fiona’s true self is revealed in the film Shrek—another movie about transformation—filled with awe-inspiring light and dramatic music leading us to expect a Beauty and the Beast-style ending. Instead, Shrek subverts our expectations, like many of Jesus’ parables. The light subsides to reveal “true love’s true form,” as the song goes, and we discover that true love’s true form isn’t one of conventional beauty and royalty, but rather one that makes Fiona perfectly suited for a life of companionship with Shrek in the swamp — a life that the story teaches us has the potential for a lot more abundance and love than life in a palace.

Indeed, a central message in the story of Jesus’ transfiguration in all three gospels is that the moment of dazzling glory comes not at the end of the gospel, but in the middle. It is not the climactic moment in which Jesus’ true nature is decisively revealed for all to see. After the light show subsides (and in Luke, after the divine voice, proclaims Jesus as God’s chosen), Jesus goes back to looking just as he has while they’ve been traveling around Galilee, teaching, healing, and setting people free from the powers that bound them and closed them off from community. The disciples tell no one of what they have seen. When the disciples are ready to proclaim their message to the world, at the very center of it will be a moment that comes much later in the story, the moment in which Jesus’ true nature is revealed and lifted up for any to see: that is to say, Jesus’ true nature will be revealed on the Cross. In verse 31, Luke tells us that Moses and Elijah appear in glory and speak of Jesus’ “departure, which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.” The Greek word used for “departure” here is exodus. The connection between this Gospel text and the experience of Moses’ descent from Sinai is made clear. And we heard both stories this morning.

The Disciples witnessed a vision, and wanted to stay atop the mountain forever. They could not. The author and theologian Henri Nouwen has said that the Transfiguration offers access through the gate of the visible—a very human Jesus—into the mystery of the invisible—the face of God. In this Gospel story, Jesus becomes a kind of luminous narrative—a living story, if you will, pointing to a wonderfully mysterious truth. Whatever happened on the mountain had to have meaning on level ground, that place where the sacred and profane meet in mundane, quotidian everydayness. The disciples hear a voice from heaven saying “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” This repeats a common thread in the use of the term “beloved” and in the command to listen, to pay attention. And so with this the mountaintop experience comes to an end, and it is time to return to the everydayness of life, and a journey which may lead into unknown territory.

Begging the question, what might it mean to “practice Transfiguration,” theologically understood, once one has descended the mountain? And keeping with two of the identified themes of this passage—those of light and of listening— how might this inform our practices of paying attention to the light of the Transfiguration in the everyday moments of our lives, and not just those occasional mountaintop experiences? This may mean recognizing that in some way we, too, are to be bearers of that Light. The valley—and the road to Jerusalem that lay within it, is where Jesus continued his ministry. How do we embody our mountaintop experiences, including our journey into Christ in the Eucharist, once we have returned to the valley of day-to-day life to “Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord”? How do our disciplines and practices inform both our mountaintop experiences and life upon our return to level ground where we are called to see Christ in the face of the other, and respect the dignity of every human being?

Some time ago I journeyed with my two sons to the Northern Cascades for a mountaineering trip, the ultimate goal of which was to summit Mt. Baker. Or, so I thought. After several days of preparation, we departed our base-camp at 2:00am for the summit attempt. The night was clear and cold, and our team, roped together, ascended steadily up the glacier. Each deliberate step brought us closer the hoped for sunrise on the summit of this jewel of the Cascades. Soon, however, lightning appeared off to the west as a line of powerful, pre-dawn thunderstorms announced a fast-moving cold front. In consultation with our wise guide, we made the group decision to return to camp, the wind, rain, and lightning close behind. I wanted the mountaintop, and I got a storm. I was disappointed, and later, in conversation with my sons, in which I voiced my regret, our older son, the most experienced mountaineer among us, he said something I’ll never forget. “Dad, you never intentionally climb into a storm. That’s mountaineering 101. We did the right thing.” His wise, old soul younger brother nodded, and pointed toward the Roosevelt-Deming glacier glittering like a thousand jewels below us. We were together on an unforgettable adventure, and that was all that really mattered. What I remember most about the trip now, back in life on level ground, is not the fact that we did not reach the summit, but that we created lifelong memories, and that our disciplines and practices led us to remember what was most valuable and important—our love for one another, showing up, being present, and fully alive. Like Peter, perhaps, who wanted to remain on the mountain top, I had to reconcile my return to level ground with a deeper awareness of the nature of the journey, a journey perhaps more ambiguous, mysterious, and risky. The disciples would descend the mountain, but—and this is where our Mt. Baker narrative and this one part company—they would climb into a storm of life-changing proportions with Jesus in Jerusalem. Perhaps with Peter we are tempted to say “Let’s stay on this mountain, and build huts here” when practicing Transfiguration on level ground may mean transformation and change beyond anything we had imagined.

Sometime in the late 4^th or early 5^th century, St. Augustine preached a sermon on the nature of the Eucharist in which he said, “Behold what you are…become what you receive.” For Augustine the disciplines and practices of the sacraments are the occasion for both a deeper awareness of what one is, and a living into what one might become as one in the Body of Christ. The Transfiguration is, in part, a living into a sense of wonder about the mystery of such transformations. And so with Fiona, and Shrek, we learn that true love’s true form may be found in the most surprising and life-giving ways. And with Augustine, and with James, and John, and especially Peter, who was so very human, and for whom falling down, was ultimately falling upward into grace, we understand that in Christ we are created in the image of God, Imago Dei. And we know in new ways that God’s love will follow us regardless of where we go. These are signs of grace and hope bountiful plenty to take with us down from the mountaintop, regardless of where our practices of transfiguration may take us. Amen.

Seventh Sunday after Epiphany – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect

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. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Luke 6:27-38

Jesus said, “I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you…

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. 

Deep River,

My home is over Jordan.

Deep River, Lord.

I want to cross over into campground.

The words of this powerful spiritual speak so well to us and to the life and ministry of so many, from Martin Luther King and Ghandi to all those who work for justice and compassion. Campground is that place where justice is realized, and compassion and hospitality allow us to see the face of the other and accept them as children of God. And these words remind of that night in Memphis, when Martin Luther King said, “I’m not fearing any man. I’ve been to the mountaintop… and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you…These words resonate the themes of both the Exodus story and of Luke’s Gospel. Like Moses, he was leading his people out of bondage to powers and principalities. He was formalizing and clarifying a new relationship with the old order. He referred to the mountaintop experience of Moses in such a way as to place in context the nature of his service and, if necessary, his suffering. His speech also exhibited the codification of a new law in relation to contemporary social issues. His solidarity with the Memphis garbage workers, on strike because of racially biased, unfair wages, called for a transcendence of the current law. He called for a new covenant. His voice spoke out against the injustice of laws that violated the fundamental rights of his fellow human beings and, though “legal” in the technical sense, were unjust. His identification as a contemporary Christian allowed him to call upon these two traditions with integrity and power. His suffering and eventual death were in the extreme an example of how service to God a particular kind of freedom is indeed. Had he been bound by old codes of vengeance; the movement would have never gotten beyond the “eye for an eye” stage and gone the way of all such movements. Insisting on the practice of non-retaliation and using the language of the Exodus out of Egypt, King manifested in his own life journey the tensions inherent in both the Exodus account and the Gospel of Luke. There was, to be sure, ambiguity and suffering. The way was not always clear, nor is it now. Jesus is rarely who we want him to be. We want him to be comfortable, reassuring, and safe, but sometimes he is none of these things. Jesus’ teaching is hard. If we really hear it, no matter where we are situated in terms of economics, society, or politics, it will make us uncomfortable, unsettled, and feel decidedly challenged. Jesus was and is a radical — not in the sense being on the extreme ends of the political spectrum, but in the literal sense of ‘down to the roots.’ His vision for humanity, for the Church, for us, is not about stopgap solutions but about a deep and thoroughgoing transformation of our beliefs, ideals, and actions.

There are few places in the Gospels where this is more evident than in Luke’s Sermon on the Plain (Luke’s version of Matthew’s more famous Sermon on the Mount), which our Sunday lectionary started last week and continues today, with these challenging words:

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.

This ethic runs pretty much opposite to every human instinct. We recite the Golden Rule — Do unto others as you would have them do unto you — often enough, but here in context it seems more difficult, because what it’s really saying is “Do unto others not as they have done and are doing unto you.” Ouch. When Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” he’s not talking about abstract figures, but the literal people who hurt us. This is love completely devoid of sentimentality. But is this kind of love even possible? And if it is, is it good? The twentieth century was a golden age for nonviolent resistance. And a lot of that was driven by Christians who saw in Jesus’ teaching not a way of reinforcing power structures, but of a means of empowering the oppressed by revealing those power structures as being evil. Howard Thurman, a theologian whose writings inspired many of the leading figures of the American Civil Rights movement wrote powerfully about this: Hatred, he says, only reinforces hatred and harms the hated and hater alike. The way of love is not a sentimental retreat or a submission in the face of injustice, but a way for the oppressed to take ownership of their lives by taking the initiative over their oppressors. As Richard Rohr has written, “Just don’t get into the tit-for-tat game… Create your own loving set of rules, which will blow the system apart. You take the initiative and change the rules, the expectations and the outcome” (Jesus’ Plan for a New World). In teaching in this way, Jesus takes away the idea of reciprocity and retribution. We don’t do good because others do good to us; neither do we do bad because others do bad to us. We do good because it’s good. Full stop. But what’s interesting is that, right at the end of the passage, Jesus gives us back reciprocity in a transfigured way:

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.

As the theologian Matthew Root has suggested, here the mirror for our actions is not our neighbor, but God. God, in whose image and likeness we were made, is the one whose image our lives are to reflect. And so, we are called to mercy, to withhold judgement and condemnation, to forgive, and to be generous. And, because we do this, we will receive these as well, even if in ‘the next life’ or in a ‘spiritual way’ in this life. This remains difficult teaching. Our sense of justice and fairness demands that things balance out in this world; sadly, the reality of sin makes that unlikely, if not impossible. The most we can hope for in this world is consolation to go along with the difficulty, and to build the best, most whole and healed relationships we can, and exercise our true spiritual freedom— the freedom to set aside our natural urges for retribution and to love even our enemies.

One of my dear friends and colleagues told our group of a ministry they call the Starfish Collective. It’s based on a story of a young mother and her child who discover while walking on the beach that the retreating tide has left hundreds of starfish stranded above the waterline, where they will die in the heat and sun before the next incoming tide can cover them once more. The two of them rush from creature to creature, picking each one up and flinging it back into the sea. A curmudgeonly old man walking by scoffs, and says derisively, “You’re wasting your time. You can’t possibly make a difference here. There’s just too many of them and only two of you.” The child picks up one more starfish and tosses it into the waves. “Made a difference for that one,” she says.  “Be merciful,” Jesus told his disciples, “As your heavenly parent is merciful.”  

Service to God is, in this sense, perfect freedom because it ultimately means a transcendence of self, as one embraces a higher calling. We make our voices heard, amid uncertainty and ambiguity, and make ourselves willing to embark on a journey out of bondage to a servanthood to self alone. It is very easy to be kind to those who are nice to us – and to love those who love us. The challenge for Christians is to go further. Among Jesus’ own disciples there were strong characters and the potential for disastrous relationships. Simon the Zealot was violently opposed to Roman occupation; Matthew had made a living as a tax-collector in effect collaborating with the Romans; in the early Church at Philippi, Luke would have met a community in which a wealthy woman called Lydia met and worshipped on equal terms with dockers from the local port. Peter, as we know, struggled time and time again to understand and live out what Jesus was saying. His humanity is, in this sense, what draws me to him. And yet Jesus said he was the rock on which his church was built. I take comfort in that. Christian communities are never uniform – people hold different political views – and have strong opinions about a wide variety of issues; we belong to different social groups, and so on. And yet, week by week, we gather to worship God and, hopefully, to build up the Body of Christ in our own community and the locality in which we live. To do this, we must employ much of the teaching in today’s Gospel, cultivating qualities of compassion, forbearance and forgiveness. We must go beyond what might be expected in a club or other organization – being willing to sacrifice something of our own self-interest to create harmony. Such a community is a powerful witness to the world and will attract others to us. Yes, we may find ourselves exploited from time to time – but, as Jesus says, God is never outdone in generosity – and what we give we will receive back in even greater abundance.  “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” King quoted these very words in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail. “I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

King made the remarkable observation that the greatest enemy of justice in Birmingham at the time was not the sheriff, armed with clubs, and fire hoses, but rather the indifference of those who knew better. Believe that as long as you keep going, you will arrive. Another prophetic voice of that time, Marvin Gaye, sang about taking those first steps: ”Mother, mother There’s too many of you crying Brother, brother, brother There’s far too many of you dying. You know we’ve got to find a way…to bring some loving, here today.”Campground, in the old spiritual, is that place, dear one’s where we are all heading when we respond to the question, “And what does the LORD require of you: To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” It is that place where we are committed to justice, and compassion.

Oh, don’t you want to go,

To the Gospel feast;

That Promised Land,

Where all is peace? Oh, deep River, Lord,

I want to cross over into campground.

Amen.

Sixth Sunday after Epiphany – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect

O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Luke 6:17-26

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this sixth Sunday after Epiphany. I have been thinking about the beginning of the Gospel text for this morning…the part where Luke tells us that Jesus came down from the mountain after naming the Twelve, and stood on a “level place” with a large crowd of disciples and others waiting for him. I found myself thinking about the implications of this act…particularly since Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount” includes similar teaching but takes place on the mountaintop. Matthew’s version is also more “spiritualized.” He says, for example, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Luke’s account, on the other hand, begins with “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.” Somehow the fact that Jesus came down from the mountain to this level place seems important. He is not talking down to the crowd but is rather on a level playing field with them. There is a kind of reciprocity and availability here that I find intriguing. Perhaps this is, in part, because I don’t believe the beatitudes are about us…or that they were spoken those listening in such a way as to give them prescriptive commands about how to live. It’s so easy to hear them this way, but I think doing so misses the point. I once had a professor who constantly reminded those of us would-be pastoral therapists against giving advice. “Your clients can go out onto West End Avenue and get advice for free,” he said. “What they can’t get is the availability and wisdom and presence you bring to the relationship. It’s a relationship unlike any other.” I believe this is what Jesus is doing here, and I think it is a good practice for the priesthood of all believers, too—and that means all of us.

Because, you see, in this Gospel text Jesus is offering relationship. He is not so much offering commands for how we should live, or prescriptive advice about what we should do. We hear these words and some of us imagine Jesus to be telling us that we should go be poor, or learn to cry more, or find ways to be persecuted. I think this misses the real issue. The harder we try to make these rather distinctive sayings into some kind of prescriptive marching orders, the less sense they make. Moreover, I believe the paradoxical nature of these beatitudes is, in a sense, precisely the point. Nowhere in these sayings is there a directive of any kind—to anybody. Nowhere does Jesus use the imperative, nowhere does he give any orders or advice or requirements. The entire section is in the indicative—that is, he is showing—not ordering. He is signifying and suggesting—not telling people what to do.

This invitation to consider a different view of reality is precisely in keeping, I believe, with the symbolic act of coming down from the mountain, on an even plane with the people, and giving an indication of the kingdom of God from ground level. I am not persuaded that this passage is about making the world a better place, or how to become more prosperous, or how to earn favor with God. I believe Jesus is giving the crowd, and by extension giving us, a glimpse into the way God thinks, who God is, and what the Kingdom of God is like. If the beatitudes don’t seem to bear much likeness to reality, as we know it, so be it. They are not about the way the world really works, just as they are not about how we are to behave. The beatitudes are about imagining what matters to God. And how we respond to this knowledge is up to us—wherever we are in our lives, here and now. Jesus offers us a glimpse of the paradoxical picture of God’s values and priorities—and he does so as an alternative to our ordinary ways of viewing the world. Jesus is giving us an opportunity to see that which is often hidden to our day-to-day vision. What we do with this is up to us.

Perhaps we will find that we are encouraged in a rough spot, or cautious during a soft spot.

Perhaps we will see ourselves as one kind of person or another among these categories, even paradoxically so. That too is finally between each one of us, and God. Regardless, the promise is that the way things are is not the way things will always be. I don’t know about you, but when I imagine Jesus coming down off the mountain and being at eye-level, I find myself more open to hearing what he has to say. I am drawn to him precisely because of this gesture of availability. I feel, well, a sense of openness to the possibilities. I can imagine stretching on tiptoes to see, and straining to hear Jesus speak these words and, upon hearing them, walking away, shaking my head and laughing. I can imagine thinking to myself “Wow, now that is a new light on this business of being alive…and it will take a while for me to begin to ponder this, and perhaps to see my life in this new light.” Perhaps the laughter in my imagination is instructive. Isn’t it true that so often laughter can ease the bumps in the road, level the anxiety we may feel, and give us a new perspective on what it means to be human? As the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once said, “Laughter is the beginning of prayer, humor is the prelude to faith.”    

And perhaps the reference to light is instructive, too. After all, the theme of Epiphany is light. Yet the past few days have been mostly gray and rainy and cold. But you know what? The past two weeks, on my runs on the trails, most of which have occurred in cold rain, I have noticed flocks of bluebirds; 10-15 of these lovely creatures creating a distinctive colorful, hopeful contrast to the gray skies.

I reminded myself that bluebirds begin nesting in February, and I remembered another cold and rainy February when I had put up a new bluebird box the previous fall. Why did I do this? Who knows? Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Maybe that had something to do with it. One evening, just before dark, I was getting some firewood from the back yard, and I decided to make sure the bluebird box near the woodpile was clear of insects and debris—just in case it might seem an appealing home to some pair among the recent visitors. Slowly, carefully, I opened the front door. In an instant I saw the momentary brilliant flash of a blue wing, perched high on the new nesting material in the box. The evening light, for a moment, revealed a deep, abiding faithful and mysterious loveliness hidden inside. I slowly closed the door, secured it, and moved away, shaking my head and laughing at the paradoxical mystery of this revelation—this indication, this signifier, this intimation—of a new season of life. There, in the soft last light of an Epiphany evening, still deep in winter, the mystery of these bluebirds is the same as the question abiding in the beatitudes—if such a thing as this is possible, this turning upside down of our expectations, how might our own lives be different?

These blessings and woes are certainly strange, but could they be the doorway to a life more beautiful and fuller of wonder than our deepest dreams? This depends on the choices we make. And Luke uses his gospel to show that people can fall under the spell of the Jesus Way and choose the winding path toward participation in God’s blessed kingdom. The good Samaritan provides emergency assistance to a man who has been robbed and then generously commits funds for his longer-term recovery. Following an encounter with Jesus, a tax collector named Zacchaeus distributes his wealth to those he has cheated. An unnamed woman breaks a precious jar of ointment so that she can use its contents as a blessing for Jesus as life brings him closer to the cross.

Because you see, Jesus uses blessings to encourage and give hope to those who have every good reason to be discouraged and hopeless. Underneath these words, he is saying, You are beloved. The world may not see you that way, but I do. And I will treat you accordingly. Where is the church speaking words that communicate that kind of hope? Where is the church acting to make these blessings come true? That’s the winding path of love that leads to the most amazing views.

Jesus cared so much for those who needed care that he held nothing back as he loved them. As Luke says, “Power came out from him and healed all of them.” He must have seemed strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than their deepest dreams. His spirit of compassion for those who were impoverished and ostracized was fierce and unwavering. He was issuing an invitation to those who had the means to make life more blessed for those without such resources. Indeed, Jesus’ blessings and woes are specific and daunting. They can make us reconsider how we have ordered and understood our world—and how to amplify compassion and generosity. That would be the first step along the winding road that leads to a world full of compassion. Do we believe this? Are we foolish for doing so? Is it possible that these beatitudes offer us what the poet Robert Frost called “something more of the depths,” … something, that is, beyond our own self-preoccupation? I believe this is a step toward wholeness, rather than cure. Curing means getting rid of the disease, while healing— “salve”,  means becoming whole. We do far better to imagine that we have parts of ourselves more like Mary, or the prodigal, or Paul with his thorn, or Peter, who so faithfully struggled to be whole despite his limitations—limitations I share with him, rather than imagining ourselves to have all the answers. We all need grace, and the more deeply we understand this, the closer we move to wholeness. That is why Jesus “ate with sinners” and why he came down to level ground, and why the people felt so comfortable around Him. Robert Frost wrote:

Jesus is offering us in the beatitudes a glimpse into the heart of God— “something more of the depths” as Frost put it. What we do with this glimpse—this light into the kingdom of God, is, finally, up to us. Amen.

5th Sunday after Epiphany – Year C – Bill Harkins

Collect

Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Luke 5:1-11

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning and welcome to Holy Family on this Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany! We are so glad you have joined us this morning. The Gospel for today is evocative on many levels, not the least of which is the remarkable, and I dare say evangelical conversion of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, notable in part for the utter loss by Zebedee of the labor force of his solid small fishing business…but that is a sermon on a different kind of faith for another day, perhaps. Suffice it to say that I have always worried about old Zebedee and admired the resilience with which he carried on. I’m not sure I would have fared well under those circumstances. This passage is also noteworthy in its lovely evocation of Isaiah, and the passage we heard just a few weeks ago– The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. Now, in Epiphany, we see the Incarnational embodiment of those prophetic words and today it takes the form of Jesus casting his nets—fishing for people—on the shores of Galilee. With gratitude, I recall today with affection the novelist Walker Percy, whom I met while I was a student at Rhodes College, and whose writings had, in some ways, the effect of converting a young neuroscience major into the priest standing before you all this morning. And I am reminded of the holy and haunting lines from the poem of his relative, William Alexander Percy, written in 1924, and now published as Hymn 661 in our hymnal:

They cast their nets in Galilee

Just off the hills of brown

Such happy simple fisherfolk

Before the Lord came down

Contented peaceful fishermen

Before they ever knew

The peace of God That fill’d their hearts 

Brimful and broke them too

It is the fourth stanza of William Alexander Percy’s moving poem that captures the Christian gospel task: “The peace of God, it is no peace,/ But strife closed in the sod,/ Yet, let us pray for but one thing– / The marvelous peace of God.” Our gospel lesson recounts for us the calling of four fishermen into the fold of the disciples of Jesus: Andrew and Simon Peter, and James and John. They became, probably, the closest followers and friends of Jesus. But they were ordinary people, rural people. They were simple fisher folk. Though we tend to think of “fishing,” these days as a peaceful and leisurely endeavor, true fishermen know it is hard work. Those who make a living from fishing know that their livelihood depends upon random weather, equipment repaired repeatedly, and the vagaries of where fish might be on a given day. In some ways we can identify with this uncertainty, as we all know that much is left to chance in our lives no matter how much control we believe we may have. Fishermen are, therefore, in some ways like all of us. The first followers of Jesus were regular people, making a regular living, praying for the peace of God. That peace was often mixed with strife, but it was worth it… people just like you and me, people who work for peace even when some days are so hard… like “strife sown in the sod” to use Percy’s image. We get it…and yet, when we come together in Christ, something happens as Percy says, the “marvelous peace of God,” the peace that passes all understanding. So perhaps we might cast our prophetic nets ahead a bit, use our imaginations, and evoke a day yet to come, though those called to follow Jesus on the shore that day could not foresee it. What will the Incarnational work begun on the shore of Galilee this day bring about? If we imagine that we, too, are called to put down our nets, however we understand this, what now?

In the past several weeks I have spoken with many people in our parish, and for that matter in my clinical practice, and in grocery store aisles and countless other contexts about the political tensions in our country. Some have wanted me to preach in support of our president—for whom we pray and will continue to pray—and others have expressed deep concerns about the current administration and even wondered if Holy Family is a safe place for them to worship. Like many, our own family has been impacted by recent events, as our brilliant daughter-in-law, a gifted epidemiologist with the CDC, like thousands of employees from the VA to the CDC and beyond, was among those receiving the resignation offer letter, which has created mass confusion. And our son, an oncology fellow at MD Anderson, has been working on a lymphoma grant for NIH now put on hold. Many have been impacted and have had their lives turned upside down including aid organizations in our own denomination and that of our sister denomination, the Lutheran Church. Like each of you, regardless of how you voted, I have strong feelings about these matters. But hear this, I will always preach the Gospel, which calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves, welcome the stranger, show compassion to the suffering, and respect the dignity of every human being. And I will never tell you or anyone else how to vote, a sacred right ultimately based on your core values, and how those values are lived out in the world. As today’s Gospel suggests we are called to put down our nets and follow Jesus. How we interpret this is ultimately a matter between ourselves and God. Maybe our “nets” metaphorically speaking, are either/or, all or nothing ways of thinking and being in the world, and we may be called to let this go. Nevertheless, I will never tell you, or anyone else, how to vote.

And we have been here before in our church, many times. Indeed, some 25 years ago, I was a Postulant here at Holy Family. Let me tell you about a chapter in our own history during a time we were threatened with division, an experience later published in an academic journal. That summer, after a two-week vacation in Wyoming with our large extended family. The trip was primarily in honor of the 50th wedding anniversary of my parents-in-law, and 15 of us spent a week in Dubois, Wyoming, just south and east of the Tetons and Yellowstone Park. This is an area of distant views, stunningly beautiful and remarkably varied geological terrain, and weather that can change in an instant. Yes, Yellowstone was a fascinating, exotic experience for this native Georgian, and the park and its environs struck me as a wonderland of flora and fauna with which I was largely unaccustomed. Adding to my sense of mystery in this remarkable area is the fact that much of it is contained in a vast, ancient volcanic caldera. Geologists tell us that it is one of several geologic “hotspots” around the world—areas, that is, suggestive of high thermal energy beneath the surface. Old Faithful, the area of Mammoth Hot Springs, and many other areas in and around Yellowstone are “outward and visible signs” of this reality. All of this occurred, of course, in the context of our family gathering, and the joys and tensions of a family of 15 spending a week together in close quarters. Despite the inevitable moments of difficulty that come with life in families, we did just fine, and the trip was a joy and an adventure. Oddly, one moment stands out for me, and I have thought of it often considering the events of the past several weeks in our country, and in the diverse family that is our Episcopal Church. Driving east on I-80 out of Salt Lake City into Wyoming, we eventually turned left at Rock Springs and began to climb toward Lander and the Wind River Range. Driving north in this dramatic, high desert country, we passed a sign that read “Continental Divide–7, 600 Feet.” Upon seeing the sign, one of my nephews removed his Walkman from its normal, fixed position and asked from the back of the van, “Uncle Bill, what does ‘Continental Divide’ mean?” With utter certainty and absolute authority, I said: “Kevin, it means that all the water—snow or rain, that falls on the east side flows into the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico, and all the water that falls on the west side eventually flows into the Pacific Ocean.” “Wow,” Kevin said. “That’s pretty cool. You know a lot of neat stuff, Uncle Bill.” And he then restored his Walkman to its rightful place and went back to reading his book.

For a few moments of self-congratulatory bliss, I drove on in complete agreement with my young nephew…such a bright and perceptive lad. “Yes,” I thought to myself, “I am a veritable storehouse of esoteric but essential information about the nature of things, just waiting to expostulate with clarity and certainty bestowing upon worthy recipients the fruits of my knowledge. Yes, that’s me…Uncle Bill, font of wisdom and truth.”

And yet…I began to look around, to really see the land through which we sojourners were passing. This high desert country was stunningly beautiful, with the majestic, snow-capped Wind River Range piling up ahead of us to the north and west. But the landscape where we were at that moment was rolling hills, with vast open spaces of relatively flat terrain, as if it had been scooped out of the earth by giant hands. Truth told, as I thought about it, I could not really tell in which direction rain falling over this area might eventually flow—which way the melting snows of winter would travel in the warm spring sun. I found this, well, unsettling.

I began to feel not so very wise. The old Rhodes College neuroscience major in me began to develop alternative hypotheses, testing each one in my mind as we drove northward. But there was no getting around it. Falling rain in this region might end up almost anywhere. The term “Continental Divide” either meant what it said, in the way I had explained it to my nephew, or it meant nothing at all, and should be dispensed with. Heaven help me, I even began to feel a little anxious. “If this term—that sign back there, doesn’t really mean exactly what it says, what does?”

Even as I said this to my former science-oriented self, however, I knew better. I knew, moreover, that this either/or, all-or-nothing binary way of thinking was not really my style. I knew there were some places in the Rockies where one could indeed literally stand astride the Continental Divide in a steady rain and watch the water flow toward either side, fully confident of its destination. Other places, like the Great Divide Basin, were more, well, ambiguous—there was “greyer” in the definition; there was need for more discernment.

John McPhee, the remarkable writer who has made geology—and many other topics—come alive for lay folk like me, wrote the following about the very spot through which we were now driving:

“Dark mountains spread low across the horizon, might have been a storm coming—and in a sense they were, or had been. They were the Over-thrust belt, cumulate from the west. Looking north to the even more distant Gros Ventre and Wind Rivers, and south to the Uintas, were encompassing in a wide glance about sixteen thousand square miles of land, much of it so dry, stacked flat like crumbling hardtack, that only a geologist could absorb such a scene and see in it a lake that would rank seventh in the world….So level is the land there that the term “Continental Divide” is somewhat moot. Cartographers seem to have difficulty determining where it is. Its location will vary from map to map. Moreover, it frays, separates, and, like an eye in old rope, surrounds a couple of million acres that do not drain either to the Atlantic or the Pacific—adding ambiguity to the word “divide.”

As I thought about this later, I came to see the terrain in a new way. I could see that, rather than rendering the term “continental divide” meaningless, somehow, by virtue of it’s sharing an ancient, complex story, a previous life as an Eocene Lake of tremendous proportions—it seemed to enlarge, deepen, and enrich the term for me. I could take the long view of the geologist and within it, engage this term with imagination, depth and dimension in time and space.

I thought a great deal about our complex church family and the ostensible “continental divide” issues down through the years that have threatened to separate us: creedal debates; the Civil War, and especially the issue of slavery; the Introduction of the new Book of Common Prayer, and saying goodbye to the 1928 Prayer Book; issues of Civil Rights; the intense debates over the ordination of women and same sex marriage; and the ratification and consecration of Bishop Elect Gene Robinson of New Hampshire and related discussions about human sexuality. Most recently, the homily given by Bishop Mary Ann Budde has led many to the Episcopal Church and caused others to threaten to leave. Each of these has seemed to be, in its time, the “continental divide” that would split the church by means of either/or, all or nothing thinking about how—and if—we come together at table, and who presides there. Each has threatened to give us reason to make choices primarily out of fear—a fear that God’s love will not be enough to overcome the ambiguous divides that threaten to separate us. It cannot. It must not. And let us remember, my brothers and sisters, that making decisions informed primarily by an ethos of fear—amidst what Walter Brueggemann calls a “myth of scarcity,” is almost always dangerous, because such decisions make us more vulnerable to this “all or nothing” thinking.13 Rather, perhaps this terrain we have traversed in our Episcopal Church over those two weeks of General Convention was more like the Continental Divide in the Great Basin of Wyoming. Perhaps in this liminal, transitional place called church, the winds of the Holy Spirit blow and have space to creatively engage us. Perhaps there are times in the life of our church, just as is sometimes true in our personal sojourns, when “not knowing” with utter certainty can be a blessing. Perhaps during this interim season of our lives—we can trust that the Spirit is indeed working among us.  

It is not always easy to see beneath the literal to the metaphorical and symbolic, especially when our basic needs and fears often determine what we see, and how. Jesus knows we are hungry on many levels, and we are often scared, and wilderness can take so many forms. The psychologist Carl Jung, deeply interested in religion, once said: “I have seen people remain unhappy when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, reputation, outward success, money, and remain unhappy even when they attain what they have been seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon.”

Peter, Andrew, James, and John would come to learn this and to bear it out in ways they could not imagine…the peace of God that passes all understanding and, as William Alexander Percy said so well, the marvelous peace of God. Like each of the disciples in their own way, who left their nets to become the Body of Christ in the world, Jesus is to be broken, blessed, and shared. He gives himself away, each moment. Like the Eucharist we celebrate, Jesus is more than a provider of physical sustenance. In Wyoming, I said “Pay attention; see, and you will believe.” Conversely, Jesus says to us, “Seeing is not always the same as believing; sometimes you have to believe, in order to really see.” Both are correct. And both point to a similar truth: the only way to have a full life, and keep it, is to give it away. Jesus embodied this in his life, in which we are invited to be creatively compassionate, in gratitude. “Every day,” Wendell Berry says, “you have less reason not to give yourself away.” Jesus said, “I am the Bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry. Take up your nets, and follow me.” Amen.As I thought about this later, I came to see the terrain in a new way. I could see that, rather than rendering the term “continental divide” meaningless, somehow, by virtue of it’s sharing an ancient, complex story, a previous life as an Eocene Lake of tremendous proportions—it seemed to enlarge, deepen, and enrich the term for me. I could take the long view of the geologist and within it, engage this term with imagination, depth and dimension in time and space.

I thought a great deal about our complex church family and the ostensible “continental divide” issues down through the years that have threatened to separate us: creedal debates; the Civil War, and especially the issue of slavery; the Introduction of the new Book of Common Prayer, and saying goodbye to the 1928 Prayer Book; issues of Civil Rights; the intense debates over the ordination of women and same sex marriage; and the ratification and consecration of Bishop Elect Gene Robinson of New Hampshire and related discussions about human sexuality. Most recently, the homily given by Bishop Mary Ann Budde has led many to the Episcopal Church and caused others to threaten to leave. Each of these has seemed to be, in its time, the “continental divide” that would split the church by means of either/or, all or nothing thinking about how—and if—we come together at table, and who presides there. Each has threatened to give us reason to make choices primarily out of fear—a fear that God’s love will not be enough to overcome the ambiguous divides that threaten to separate us. It cannot. It must not. And let us remember, my brothers and sisters, that making decisions informed primarily by an ethos of fear—amidst what Walter Brueggemann calls a “myth of scarcity,” is almost always dangerous, because such decisions make us more vulnerable to this “all or nothing” thinking.13 Rather, perhaps this terrain we have traversed in our Episcopal Church over those two weeks of General Convention was more like the Continental Divide in the Great Basin of Wyoming. Perhaps in this liminal, transitional place called church, the winds of the Holy Spirit blow and have space to creatively engage us. Perhaps there are times in the life of our church, just as is sometimes true in our personal sojourns, when “not knowing” with utter certainty can be a blessing. Perhaps during this interim season of our lives—we can trust that the Spirit is indeed working among us.  

It is not always easy to see beneath the literal to the metaphorical and symbolic, especially when our basic needs and fears often determine what we see, and how. Jesus knows we are hungry on many levels, and we are often scared, and wilderness can take so many forms. The psychologist Carl Jung, deeply interested in religion, once said: “I have seen people remain unhappy when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, reputation, outward success, money, and remain unhappy even when they attain what they have been seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon.”

Peter, Andrew, James, and John would come to learn this and to bear it out in ways they could not imagine…the peace of God that passes all understanding and, as William Alexander Percy said so well, the marvelous peace of God. Like each of the disciples in their own way, who left their nets to become the Body of Christ in the world, Jesus is to be broken, blessed, and shared. He gives himself away, each moment. Like the Eucharist we celebrate, Jesus is more than a provider of physical sustenance. In Wyoming, I said “Pay attention; see, and you will believe.” Conversely, Jesus says to us, “Seeing is not always the same as believing; sometimes you have to believe, in order to really see.” Both are correct. And both point to a similar truth: the only way to have a full life, and keep it, is to give it away. Jesus embodied this in his life, in which we are invited to be creatively compassionate, in gratitude. “Every day,” Wendell Berry says, “you have less reason not to give yourself away.” Jesus said, “I am the Bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry. Take up your nets, and follow me.” Amen.

The Feast of the Presentation of our Lord – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect

Almighty and ever living God, we humbly pray that, as your only begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

The Gospel: Luke 2: 22 – 40

Almighty and ever living God, we humbly pray that, as your only begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Good morning, and welcome to this Holy Eucharist in observance of Presentation Sunday, the fourth Sunday after the Epiphany. The story of the Presentation is in many ways a result of showing up and being present for mundane, ordinary rituals. I find myself intrigued by this, and especially today, as we have been about the business of being and doing church. The characters in Luke’s Gospel account are going about the business of what is required of them by Torah, the Law of Moses. They are presenting their firstborn to be dedicated to God. It seems to me important that the words “presentation” and “present” come from the same Latin root, praesens, meaning literally “to be before.” In my pastoral care classes each semester, we talked about “being there” and “being available” or “being present” as key elements of what it means to engage in effective pastoral care giving. In our spiritual lives, being present always has a double meaning. There’s present, as in here and available, paying attention and in attendance. And there’s present, as in now—this moment—or Kairos, in Greek, a sacred moment of time. Almost all of the world’s religions recommend both of these: living in the moment, with full awareness. And, we are learning from neuroscience that practicing mindfulness can literally change our neural pathways and neurochemistry for the better.

I believe this is so very important, especially in a culture that makes being present–here and now–so very difficult. We live in a time of anxiety which potentially robs of us our ability to stay present. We create forms of idolatry out of preoccupation both with the past and the future—neither of which, ultimately, we can control. I see this often in my clinical practice, and in myself.

Regardless, we then live as if the mystery of the Holy Spirit is not blowing through our lives. Thus, we sometimes are at risk for setting ourselves up for disappointment, create idols of our plans without consulting God, and cannot enjoy the present. One of the lessons I have learned from athletics—many years of football and now, many more years of running, is that we can prepare as well as possible, and then we have to show, play the game or run the race, and recognize that in order to do our best we must be present to the moment, to the task at hand. The mantra of my trail running group is “Conditions may vary.” We do the training and then we recognize that once the starter pistol is fired, most anything can—and often does happen. So the wisdom of our religious traditions seeks to address this. Now that both of our sons have become parents themselves, I remind them that the greatest gift we can offer our loved ones is “true presence.” Many faith traditions urge us to make the most of every day as a gift from God, and an opportunity that will not come to us again. Thomas Keating’s Centering Prayer practice has as its goal, in part, practicing the presence of God. This means recognizing that God is here and now moving through our everyday activities, including our smallest ritual acts, no matter how trivial they seem. This knowledge can, and should, offer us a vision of resilience, and hope.

Old Simeon and Anna knew this, too. Simeon is guided to a meeting with Joseph and Mary out of his knowledge that God’s creativity in this world has not been exhausted in the past—and both of them feel in their tired bones that God is capable of doing something in the present that is wholly new, world-shaking, and life-giving. Old Simeon takes Jesus into his arms and is moved to say…”now you are dismissing your servant in peace…my eyes have seen your salvation.” So now we know what salvation looks like. It takes on the face and embodiment of a human being.

For us, this means an affirmation that God has come among us in human form to live as we live, experience life with us in all its wonder and sorrow, and live with us into a new appreciation of what it means to be fully, truly alive as human beings. In other words, what it means to be present…to be there. Theologically this is in keeping with the events of the 40 days of Christmas, which comes to an end with the Presentation—or Candlemas—which we celebrate today. Really, the Incarnation is our central theological doctrine that God has been revealed in human form. Living into the truth of this doctrine means that we follow God’s lead in terms of self-involvement in the world of human suffering: with compassion and ethical commitment at every level of individual, social, and political involvement. It means a willingness to be present. When we say, with Simeon and Anna, “yes” to who Jesus really is, we say “no” to the myriad distractions that keep us in bondage to the past, or to the future. It means looking for opportunities to give our best efforts in our affirmation of who Jesus is, being there in ways we feel called to be there. Each of us is given a life for a reason outside ourselves. Each Sunday, indeed each day, we present ourselves—we bring forth ourselves in Epiphany—and re-dedicate our lives to God.

Through our Baptisms we are given the gift of discernment about what God wishes us to do with our lives. And we are given particular communities of faith like this one, in which to engage that discernment. Each of us has moments when someone, like Simeon, steps up to us and says, “Here is what I see for you…consider this as your ministry.” In whose face do you see Simeon in your life? Such encounters may happen in the most insignificant, mundane moments. In the simple, ordinary rituals of our lives we may encounter those who say to us, in effect, “will you be there…are you present?”    

Well, for many years, I listened to Tom and Ray Magliozzi, better known as Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers, whose Peabody Award winning show ‘Car Talk” could be heard on NPR every Saturday morning. One of my favorite parts of this show was the weekly Puzzler, typically a question to which I did not know the answer, but which was always entertaining and educational. One week the weekly puzzler question was this: Last summer I was driving east to west across the country, and found myself in Kansas around noon. I was surrounded on all sides by farms raising a single crop—beautiful to look at, but difficult to understand. When I looked to my right, I saw fields of yellow, and when I looked to my left, I saw fields of green, and yet a single crop was being grown. Please explain. And here’s the answer, which I suspect most in this crowd already knows: In the northern hemisphere, the summer sun is in the southern sky. What I was observing was heliotropism—the tendency for flowers to turn and face the sun. The plants on the left side of me were turned away from me and facing the sun, while the plants on the right side were facing me, and the sun. The plants were sunflowers. When I looked to the right, I saw the yellow faces of the flowers, and when I looked to the left, I saw the green backs of the flowers.

This is wonderful, I found myself thinking, and it perfectly describes how the work of the Holy Spirit, our comforter and advocate, gently guides us in the direction of God’s sustaining, nourishing, and healing presence. Organizations, including Holy Family, are heliotropic. Churches lean toward the source of energy—whether that energy is healthy or not. As memories and imaginations are engaged to nourish participants with the best and most life-giving resources, the church will lean in the direction of those narratives and practices.  And it is just like Simeon, stepping up and speaking the truth by virtue of having shown up and paid attention…Imagine a kind of “heliotropism of the soul” in relation to God, and one begins to understand how we are transformed when we turn toward God, whom I understand to be love incarnate, with the help of the Spirit, no matter what the context may be. And now, we can see the human forms of this through advances in relational neurobiology. Diane Ackerman, writing in a New York Times editorial, suggests that what we are learning is that the brain is constantly rewiring itself based on daily life, just as the sunflowers in Kansas are constantly turning toward the sun. For example, did you know that if you are in a committed relationship, holding your partner’s hand is enough to subdue blood pressure, ease stress, improve mental health, and even lessen pain? “In the end,”

Ackerman writes, “what we pay the most attention to defines us. How you choose to spend the irreplaceable hours of your life literally transforms you.” A baby’s first attachments imprint its brain, but this is not the end of it by any means. This neural alchemy continues throughout our lives. Supportive relationships, neuroscience is teaching us, across the life-cycle, are the most robust predictors of medical and mental health, happiness, and even forms of wisdom. In short, loving relationships can alter our brains. This includes our loving relationship with God. We now know that spiritual practices such as mindfulness meditation and centering prayer can change our neural pathways and neurochemistry, and that acts of compassion inform who, and whose, we become. Practicing gratitude leads to neuroplasticity and, literally, changes our neural pathways in life giving transformation.

Ackerman tells the story of her own marriage. After her 74 year-old husband suffered a left-hemisphere stroke that wiped out a lifetime of language all he could utter was “Mem.” “Mourning the loss of our duet of decades,” she writes, “I began exploring new ways to communicate, through caring gestures, pantomime, facial expressions, humor, play, empathy, and tons of affection—the brains epitome of a safe attachment.” This helped rewire her husband’s brain to a startling degree, she reported, and in time they were able to talk again, he returned to writing books, and even his vision improved. The brain changes with experience throughout our lives, and it’s in the context of loving relationships of all kinds—partners, spouses, children, grandchildren, parents, close friends, parishioners, and yes, dear one’s the Holy Spirit leading us, turning us, to God—that brain and body really thrive.

So, there it is. We can respond to our Baptism by turning to one another in love. If you’re in a committed, loving relationship to another—including a relationship with God as love incarnate—this can change your life. What we bear witness to in Baptism, and in the Eucharist, is a commitment to this community and to that love, God’s love, which binds us together. As Richard Powers says in his remarkable book “Overstory,” What we care for, we will grow to resemble. And what we resemble will hold us, when we are us no longer. . . .” We become what we pay attention to and love. We can turn, like sunflowers in a Kansas field, and face the source of love, and compassion, and be our best selves. “Practice Resurrection,” the poet Wendell Berry wrote, and that may begin with reaching out in hospitality and love, to others. Amen.

Third Sunday after Ephiphany – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect

Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Luke 4:14-21

Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this Third Sunday after the Epiphany. We are so glad you are here! Well, this is where it all begins: and while the baptism of Jesus is really the occasion—the true beginning—of his calling, today we continue to see the implications of that moment…the “so what” in response to Baptism. And in today’s Gospel and Epistle, it is here that the adult Jesus shows up on the stage of history. In this story and our own stories, baptism means more than repentance and cleansing. Here, theologically understood, baptism issues in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the giving of an incarnational, redemptive identity. We recall that God said to Jesus: “You are my Son, the Beloved…with you I am pleased.” Although this epiphany is a public revelation in our telling of it, the words come intimately to the praying Jesus, and by extension we all bear witness to it as well. Much lies ahead for Jesus from this point, and we hear in today’s Gospel passage that the people were filled with expectation, especially in his own hometown. He must live out this identity and meet those expectations laid on him, and we do well to pay attention to how the people have been speaking about the anointed one already; remember how the crowds will project their hopes and desires onto him. This too, informed Paul’s vocation—his calling—a calling fully realized in this text for today as he reminds the Corinthians, and by extension each of us, that “we are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” Jesus’ baptism, and his response to it, thus leads us to consider the meaning of our baptism too. It’s “vocation,” a word that has lost much of its resonance through repeated use, both secular and churchly.

The psychiatrist Carl Jung had a sign inscribed over the front door of his home which read, “Bidden or not bidden, God is present.” It is an English translation of the Latin quotation which Jung found as a student when studying Erasmus, the Renaissance scholar and humanist. “Vocatio” is the Latin root of “vocation” andmeans to have a calling, but “calling” in our culture often simply denotes one’s job or career, one’s chosen profession. The notion that it is God who calls us, seems a commonplace piety when we are talking about “church vocations,” calls to “ministry” or “the religious life,” but it sounds more like an afterthought or theological overlay about ordinary life. We tend to think of our vocations as the way we make our living, and avocations — the things we don’t have to do — provide our recreation.

Many years ago, as I first began to consider ordained ministry, Bishop Frank Allan said this to me: “I think we get it backwards in our tradition. We have ordination certificates framed and hung on the wall, and our Baptismal certificate, if we have one, and if we know where it is, is only wallet-sized. It should be the other way around. The priesthood of all believers means just that.”

I agree with this. So, what does Baptism mean, theologically understood, in the sometimes-mundane everydayness of our lives? It means what we witnessed last week at our Ministry Fair. It means the abiding and steadfast work of all the committees who, week in and week out, keep this parish running. It means each one of us, asking where in the Body of Christ we belong, striving, as Paul says, for the greater gifts—that is, being our authentic, true selves as a member of this parish.

In one of my favorite movies, Tender Mercies, which many of us watched on movie night together last year, Robert Duvall plays the role of Mac Sledge, a washed up, alcoholic country singer, who awakens at a run-down Texas roadside motel and gas station after a night of heavy drinking. He meets the motel owner, a young widow named Rosa Lee, played by Tess Harper, and offers to work in exchange for a room. Rosa Lee, whose husband was killed in Vietnam, is raising her young son, Sonny, on her own. She agrees to let Mac stay under the condition that he not drink while working and living there. The two begin to develop feelings for one another, mostly during quiet evenings sitting alone and sharing bits of their life stories. Mac resolves to give up alcohol and start his life anew. After some time passes, he and Rosa Lee wed. They start attending a Baptist church on a regular basis. Mac’s redemption and self-improvement run parallel with his conversion to Christianity. Mac is baptized for the first time, along with Sonny. Afterwards, Sonny asks Mac whether he feels any different, to which Mac responds, “Not yet,” indicating Mac’s belief that his reconciliation with God will eventually lead to transformation, over time—in Kairos, or sacred time.Mac’s response to a fan who asks if he was really “The Mac Sledge,” the country music star— “Yes, ma’am, I guess I was” — suggests that his former self has been washed away through baptism and he is open to the mystery of who he is becoming.During one scene, Rosa Lee tells Mac, “I say my prayers for you and when I thank the Lord for his tender mercies, you’re at the head of the list.” Mac did nothing to guarantee or deserve such a miracle. Despite his at times selfish and abusive past, Rosa Lee takes him in and eventually falls in love with him: It is an undeserved grace, a gift of providence from a simple woman who continued to pray for him and to be grateful for him. Mac experiences his ongoing spiritual resurrection even as he wrestles with addiction, and death, in both the past—Sonny’s father in the Vietnam War—and present—his own daughter in a car accident. He also had to die to his old ways of being in the world. In the church, we call this “metanoia”-a kind of turning around, and healing in the process. One might say that Mac found a new “vocatio”—a new calling—beyond that of being a country music star. He rose from the waters of his baptism with a grace-full gift. He was transformed by love. And so are we.

Our language of vocation is problematic not just in its churchly usage (where the distinctions and congruities of “inner” and “outer” calls can trip us up) but in the more common reality of a multiplicity of calls with competing claims upon the stewardship of our lives. We do not have just one vocation, of course, and we sometimes struggle to balance different responsibilities and relationships. Anointing any one of our vocations as somehow holier than another may be a dangerous thing. Was my role as a professor more of a vocation than my marriage, or as a counselor more important than teaching, or serving for a time among you all most important, or is my responsibility as a citizen less than my relationship to my children, and now, to my grandchildren? The claims of others call out to us, often by name, and often out of genuine need. When Thee Smith, my twin brother in ordination, and I were ordained at the Cathedral, Bishop Alexander said that we should remember that we are not professors who happened to be ordained, but priests, after the order of Melchizedek, who happen to teach. I have found this to be a deeply important and significant ontological understanding of vocation. It is a vocational tapestry that begins right here, at this altar, on Sunday and flows out from there into the world. It is a tapestry of many colors, many threads, the most significant of which is, I believe, our Baptismal thread—guiding, sustaining, enriching the whole. And what if our vocations seem to change during our lives? If what one once felt called to do or be no longer seems right, what then? Sometimes, of course, the covenants of the past must hold us in faithfulness. But sometimes new callings arise, and lives are remade in response. What of those who are adrift, unsure of any calling? Our lovely imagery of vocation then seems naïve, better suited for the supposed stability and limited choices of an earlier age. As Wendell Berry reminds us;

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,

we have come to our real work

and when we no longer know which way to go,

we have begun our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

In the Episcopal Church we are comfortable with the mystery of asking questions, being curious and open to how God might be calling us into a flourishing and generative future. But consider this: the calling of Jesus in today’s Gospel—scripture having been fulfilled in that moment—is not about a job or a career. It is not a word of mission, sending him into the future; at least, not at the outset. The word of baptism is first about the delight of God in this beloved, this chosen, this child called by name. Not a call to do, but a calling that names us. I love to imagine God delighting in Jesus, and in each of us, as any parent delights in her or his child. As for Jesus, my sisters and brothers, so it is for us. Our first calling, the baptismal calling, is the one that simply loves and names: You are my child. I delight in you. The words embrace us and promise to hold us. This is where it begins, and this is also, we dare claim, the last word, the one that holds our future. Yet between that beginning and that end, this baptismal call will often become a call to action. It will mean mission and ministry and all kinds of tasks. It means what our parish—our entire wonderful parish, from flowers and altars to tractors and caring for these acres, to Eucharistic visitors and to extending hospitality in countless ways, and on and on—what this space looked like last Sunday, and what it looks like every week, as we become the Body of Christ in the world. Anointing is a sign of blessing, but it is also a commissioning. As it was for Jesus, so it is for us, the Body of Christ in the world. Our parents and teachers and scores of others called us and sent us to the vocations of our lives. These vocations have come through human voices and relationships, institutions, and communities; they call to us in all the ways our lives find form and function. The tasks and duties do matter, but what abides — our identity, our belonging, our hope –begins when we hear “You are my child, beloved,” and we are raised to the new life of grace; sustained by the Holy Spirit; given an inquiring and discerning heart; the courage to will and to persevere; a spirit to know and to love God; and the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works.” We promise to go forth into the world, respecting te dignity of every human being. And so it is with each of us. I pray that our vocations, whatever they may be and however they are unfolding, are warmed by the Holy Fire that lives in each of us. And so, dear ones, my annual report is this…a love letter to this parish, and a deep bow of gratitude for each of you. In this season of the Episcopal church, changing as it is in so many ways, the “lay led, clergy supported” vision is becoming a reality in this parish. And I pray we remember that the Holy Spirit who anointed us on the day of our Baptism is there to assist, encourage, inspire, and sustain us. I give thanks for each of you, and for the ministries we share in this sacred space, and beyond. Amen.

Second Sunday after Epiphany – year C – Bill Harkins

The Gospel: John – 21-11

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good Morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this second Sunday after the Epiphany. After the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus and the descent of the Dove at the baptism of Jesus, the Epiphany season celebrates the beginning of miracles or “signs” in John’s story of the wedding at Cana. We read this story at Epiphany because the theme of this season of our liturgical year is the “showing forth” or manifestation of Jesus—who he is and what he is about. The changing of water into wine was the first time Jesus gave a real sign to his disciples and others in this way—this Epiphany. I want to visit with you this morning considering this first sign and the implications of this for our lives together at Holy Family. Put in theological terms, this reading from John’s Gospel builds upon the deep and rich history of traditional Jewish feasts with the immediacy, and perhaps urgency of Jesus’ life among his people. In this case, the water in the jars—representing a sacred ritual from institutional Judaism, is set aside for purification. The new revelation of who Jesus is builds upon the “old dispensation” as TS Eliot put it in his poem about the journey of the Magi. There is also the theological connection to the words of Isaiah, who likens the life of Jesus as Messiah to a wedding, and the joy of God’s people to the joy of a bride and bridegroom.

Theological musings aside, however, this is a really good story. Mary tells her son to do something for these folks whose wedding feast—and they were major social events often lasting for days—was in serious peril. Jesus tells Mary that all of this is none of his business and that he has other plans—another agenda—about how and when he will reveal himself. His time has not yet come.

Mary essentially ignores his response and assumes that Jesus is going to be a good Jewish boy and listen to his mother—and he does. Now, what we know about social customs in those days is that to have run out of wine was akin to committing a big social faux pas—a potentially disgraceful disaster that the families might never live down. Wine was the plumb line—if you will—that kept the celebration moving. So, Jesus must decide what to do. He must decide whether to wait before he makes himself known, before he reveals what he learned when God said, “you are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Or rather to act now, responding to the human need presenting itself in this moment, here and now. Jesus acts, the wedding is saved, and the bride and groom are given a new chance—the celebration is given new life. Now, if we take a step back and look at the big picture, we see that this story is not really about the bride and groom. In one sense, it isn’t even about Jesus. The first time Jesus makes himself known—the first time he “shows forth”—if you will, he does so not according to his plans or his timetable, but in response to human need. Jesus’ first manifestation of his true nature was not for or about Jesus. He didn’t call the media together for the cultural equivalent of a “breaking news” event—with which we are all so familiar these days—and then demonstrate a miracle. Rather, the true signs of his calling and identity were drawn out of him in the context of a real-life event, in relationship to people in his day-to-day existence, and out of their needs, not his.

So, dear ones, I want to suggest that what it means and what it looks like for Jesus to be the Messiah is given expression in this moment, amid a relatively mundane moment of human life and need. Who he was and what he had to give, then, were not done for him or his own self-aggrandizement. These qualities, the essence of his being, existed always and only for others—from the very beginning.  

Now, let’s turn for just a moment to the Epistle. We recall that in many of his letters, some written from prison, Paul is about the state of the church in the first century. There were many conflicts due to infighting and miscommunication. Folks in Corinth, for example, were keeping secrets from one another and, as is so often the case when religion goes bad, they were more concerned about being right than being in relationship. They were saying things like “this gift of the spirit is mine, this way of doing things is mine, this way of being in the world is mine; this form of spirituality—this religion…is mine.” And you see, what Paul says to them is what Jesus discovered when the wine gave out. Paul says “What you have been given—your spiritual gifts—are not for you. Rather, Paul says, “To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.” What you have is not for you. What you have is ultimately not even about you. The folks in Corinth could never get their religion right, or their lives right, until they realized that being right was much less important than being in relationship. When Paul references the Spirit as he does in the text for this morning, he is reminding us to tend this gift carefully—the gift of what theologian Ronald Rolheiser called our “Divine spark” or the Holy flame we have each been given. What we have been given is not for us. It is given so we might give it away, in love. So it is with most of our gifts.

Once when I was in graduate school, a gift to be sure, I used a big word in the presence of my grandmother, whom I dearly loved and hated to disappoint. She was quiet for a moment and said “Sweetheart, we are so proud of you for going on with your schooling. But remember that what you are learning—all this new knowledge—can be used to build walls that separate you from others, or bridges that reach out to them. When you use a big word and you don’t really need to, you are building a wall. And it’s like putting a ten-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head.”

What Jesus had, who he was, by the gift of God, was not for him or even about him. It was given so that he might choose to give his life away. What we have, individually and in this wonderful congregation, this Holy Family, is not for us. It is for the common good. And yet this is the great good news—this is Gospel—that when we give, we become part of something much greater than we can possibly be on our own. There is, as the theologian Paul Tillich put it, “a center, a direction, a meaning to our lives. Jesus offers new wine, a new being, new creation.” We are not created to live lives that are closed-in upon ourselves, protective, possessive, and defensively preoccupied with being right. Another of my wise grandmother’s sayings, usually from the pulpit of her garden, was “Sweetheart, remember that a person all wrapped up in themselves is a very small package.” Rather, we are creatures born to be in relationship. And this means being as fully present, at this moment, as we can be.

Jesus chose to abandon his plans; his schedule; his timetable, for relationship with something much larger. At the wedding in Cana of Galilee, he chose to act—to manifest this new creation. In doing so, he shows us what human life can be like. As the poet Goethe once said, “Anything you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Act, boldly, and Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred.” Today is our wonderful ministry fair, envisioned by Parish Life, and hosted by so many who give themselves away week in and week out. Let the Spirit you have been given allow your imagination to see new possibilities for your life at Holy Family. We need your Divine Spark, and let’s remember that there are many, many ways to give something having nothing to do with money. Remember that we come to resemble what we love and hold dear or, as Augustine said of the Eucharist, “Behold who you are, become what you receive.” Or as our fellow Episcopalian and poet Mary Oliver wrote:

Why worry about the loaves and fishes?

If you say the right words, the wine expands.

If you say them with love

and the felt ferocity of that love

and the felt necessity of that love,

the fish explode into many.

Imagine him, speaking,

and don’t worry about what is reality,

or what is plain, or what is mysterious.

If you were there, it was all those things.

If you can imagine it, it is all those things.

Eat, drink, be happy.

Accept the miracle.

Accept, too, each spoken word

spoken with love.

My friends, sometimes we can get so caught up in how something is possible that we forget simply to enjoy it. This poem by Mary Oliver invites us to accept the miracle, spoken with love, not just of the loaves and fishes, or the wine in Cana, but of our very existence, which is perhaps the greatest miracle of all. I believe this is especially true when we live beyond ourselves, into the new being of God’s new creation, where there is plenty of wine at the wedding. Amen