Necessary freedom

Judges 4:1-7

Psalm 123

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Matthew 25:14-30

“The Day of the Lord” is an ancient Biblical figure of speech.  It says that the God who made light arise in the darkness with the first word, will also have the last.  It says that the one who told Moses from the burning bush “I will be who I will be” was speaking the truth.  God will be who God will be and a day will come when God’s will and our becoming and the unfolding of the universe will be one and the same.   This was what gave the ancient Jews, and later, Christians, their great hope.  They saw a day of deliverance, when joy and thanksgiving would take the place of longing and suffering, and justice would no longer be deferred or denied.  It would be the day when, as the prophets said, “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.” 

The promised Day of the Lord was also our ancestors’ greatest dread.  Because they knew that there could be no justice without judgment.  And they were deeply aware that as much as they might like to think that relative to some others they weren’t doing too badly, God’s justice would require nothing less than the absolute truth, of everything they had ever done, or thought, or said. 

Now in the modern world, this Day of the Lord no longer has the power to awaken much hope, or a lot of dread.  Maybe we think about the day of our own deaths with some mix of these feelings.  Perhaps we hope for a tunnel of white light that leads us to a reunion with the loved ones we have lost.  Maybe we dread the extinction of our ego consciousness and bodily life and fear that nothing will be left when they are gone.  But the culmination of history, in which God comes in person to set the whole creation to rights, to heal and restore all that is hurt, and lost, and broken, really doesn’t speak to us very persuasively any more.  Instead of hope or dread, what it mostly evokes in us is a kind of embarrassment.

It’s not hard to understand why.  We are painfully aware of a long history of the use of this image to threaten and cajole, to make people fearful and guilty, and then to play on their feelings to manipulate and control them.  Quite apart from the vengeful glee that some folks take in the extravagant and sometimes lurid visions of Biblical apocalypse, and even more than the low comedy of preachers who make precise predictions of the End that is near and wind up with egg on their faces when the fateful date passes with no more than the usual crimes and cruelties, I think that what makes us most uncomfortable about this day of the Lord is the shade it throws on our autonomy.

Because at the heart of our world view is the idea that we modern human beings have broken free.  The faith of our civilization is that God, if there is one, will not decide our destiny, as a species or as individual persons.  We have taken control of our fate, and will become what we create.  Our ever-expanding scientific learning and its rational application to society and the natural world, will guide the endless forward march of progress.  Advances in pharmacology, with the right attitude and therapeutic technique, will make us relaxed, confident, and happy all the time.  If we run into roadblocks we will remove them, with no divine intervention required.

Or, if we are one of those who entertain the thought of a shadow on the horizon, it is because of human factors that have gotten out of control.  Some do imagine a future of overpopulation and resource exhaustion, climate catastrophe, nuclear apocalypse, and such things, but if there is to be a reckoning it will be our reckoning with what we have done.  And the thought that God might lift this curse from us, or that these might be signs of some inevitable and irreversible transformation, seems infantile, the worst kind of religious delusion.

So it makes us embarrassed to read scriptures that suggest that there is another agenda at work here, one that is proceeding without regard to what we had planned or what we have feared.   We don’t want to consider that even though we do not comprehend the ultimate purpose of our own existence, there is one, and it will reckon with us, whether we reckoned with it, or not.  And we certainly don’t care to hear that it is there for us to find in the Bible.

I have a guilty little secret to tell you.  On the day I was ordained to the priesthood, right at the beginning of the ordination service, I knelt on a cushion at the altar rail at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, along with eight other people.  And the bishop came to each of us in turn, and the archdeacon of the Diocese of California held out a pen and a stiff folder containing a piece of paper for me to sign.  And there, in front of the bishop, and my family, and a few hundred other clergy and lay witnesses, I signed my name to a declaration that read: “I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation.”

Which I find to be a really elegant, and very Anglican, way of handling this sensitive but crucial matter.  You notice it doesn’t say that all the words of the Bible are the words of God, just that the whole thing altogether is the Word.  It doesn’t even foreclose the possibility that there might be things outside of it that can be extremely helpful.  It just says that everything that you really need to know is there.  It suggests that there is something necessary and inevitable about the Bible—again that embarrassing threat to our autonomy—but it also suggests that we have the freedom to discover for ourselves what is in it that we need.

That combination of necessity and freedom pretty well describes the path that the Bible asks us to take, what the Prayer Book ordination rite calls “salvation.”  On the one hand there is the warning that the things we are pursuing are not the things that really matter, and the things that do matter will be all that’s left standing in the end.   On the other hand, it says, here’s what you need to know to get back on track.  But instead of spelling it out for us in a simple formula, the Bible gives us rules about agricultural practices, and racy love poetry.  It gives us political polemics and grief-stricken laments, puns and proverbs, histories and folktales, dreams and nightmares.  Most of all it gives us a story. 

And a story that is moving towards an end is a story that means something.  It is always open to new interpretation and new information because it has faith in the skill and wisdom of the supreme author, to tie up all the loose ends.  That hope is what gives ultimate importance to all the myriad details of the story itself.  It says our lives have meaning, and the actions we take matter, and that we are more than bubbles drifting on the surface of the void, waiting to our turn to burst.  We are part of God’s story, with significance not just for this fleeting moment but for all eternity.

That suggests a lot of responsibility, but it is a responsibility that comes along with an extraordinary freedom.   This is the freedom of the apostolic communities, who found in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus a new way to imagine the whole story, from beginning to end.  They saw that the Day of the Lord will be his day, the full revelation of his purpose to gather people from every family, tribe, language and nation into the kingdom that is already present in his body and blood.  This is also the freedom of the slaves in the Gospel parable, whose master entrusted them with huge sums, and then went away and left them to do with it what they will.  It is a big responsibility, but it is only too much for the one who fears and distrusts the master, the one who buries his treasure in a hole in the ground, because he thinks that not being punished is the best he can hope to do.

One plan

Job 38:1-7, (34-41)
Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37b

Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45

In January 2001, after seven years of slowly creeping to the conclusion that God’s plan for my life included becoming an Episcopal priest, I had an appointment with the Bishop of the Diocese of California.  I’d paid for and completed the psychological evaluation.  I’d met the three year residency requirement, and gotten the letters of recommendation, and written the essays.  I’d organized the congregational vocations committee and gone through the day-long meeting with the diocesan Commission on Ministry, and they’d recommended me to the Bishop for admission to the postulancy, the first stage of the ordination process.  But it was the Bishop’s decision to make, and as he showed me into his large corner office looking out at Grace Cathedral, I knew that my fate was in his hands.

We chatted for maybe half-an-hour while he leafed through a thick dossier on his lap that I knew was all about me.  I don’t remember anything about the conversation until the point when he closed the folder, straightened up in his chair, looked me in the eye and said, “Well, I was prepared to be unimpressed.”  Then he said, “what I usually do in these interviews is I look at the person in front of me and match them up with some other person I’ve ordained.  I’ll think, ‘He reminds me of so-and-so, so I know he’ll be a really fine pastor’, or ‘she’s kind of like what’s-her-name, who’s such a wonderful teacher.’  And when I can do that, then I feel confident that this person has a real vocation and a reasonable chance of success.”  He paused for a moment, while I waited for what he was going to say next.  “But the problem I’m having with you,” he went on, “is that I can’t match you up with anyone.  You’re not like anybody else.  But I feel like maybe God is doing something here.  So I’m going to say it will be okay to go ahead, and we’ll see what happens.”

If you’ve ever listened to Christian AM radio, you’ve heard it said that God has a plan for your life.  This is a standard theme of sermons that are aimed at bringing about religious conversion.  It is an effective message because it speaks to an emotional and spiritual need that our secular society is not doing a very good job of meeting.  In our world every individual person is expected to follow a fairly predictable script: find what it is that you are good at, which, incidentally, had better be something you can get paid for; then apply yourself to that diligently and consistently over time, so as to be rewarded with the material standard of living that says “you’ve made it,” and that enables you not to have to depend on anyone else.  Many people are by temperament or good fortune able to fulfill that script pretty well, which is no discredit to them at all, although even they sometimes wonder if that is really all there is.

But a lot of people really struggle because for a whole host of reasons their lives don’t quite work out that way.  And some people actually were just never cut out for that script in the first place.  Either way, they often pay a very heavy price for their inability or unwillingness to “make it” in that sense, and it is to them that the radio preacher speaks, to say that there is something else, something that transcends the conventional “ladder to success”, something that gives purpose and pattern and meaning to our lives.  It can be life-changing to hear this, and to imagine that the holder and giver of life’s meaning is infinitely wise, and infinitely powerful.  That can be good news to people who are struggling to find a sense of their own power, their own wisdom and worth.

But this brings us to the question that Jesus asks James and John in the gospel story this morning—“what do you want?”  Because the way we answer that question says a lot about whether we are really open to God’s plan for our lives, or whether we’re actually asking to make a deal with God, to get her to work on behalf of our plan.  Sometimes when people say “God has a plan for your life,” they also seem to be saying “if you believe in God, and do the right things, your life will work out the way that you want.” But I think we all know that sometimes life doesn’t work out the way you want.  And with some things that happen, it’s pretty near impossible to believe that God was behind it at all.

James and John tell Jesus that what they want is to be given seats on his right hand and on his left when he is enthroned in glory, and he explains to them that those places are not his to give.  That’s the sort of thing that belongs to the higher plan, and as such it is none of their concern.   But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a plan for their lives, and Jesus answers with a question about their commitment to that plan.  “Are you able,” he asks them, “to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism that I undergo?  Are you able to join me in my mission?”  And then he takes the twelve disciples aside to explain to them one more time what his mission is about, and what being his disciples really means.  Because God doesn’t just have a plan for their individual lives.  God doesn’t just have a plan for my life, or your life.  God has a plan for the whole universe, and your plan cannot be separated from my plan or anyone else’s.  There is really only one plan, and it is a plan for all of us together.

The mission of Jesus Christ, in which we are privileged to take part, is to give himself to the world in service of that great plan.  When our aim in life is only to seek our own advantage, to carve out our own little domain where we are the boss, and other people serve us, we diminish God’s plan for our lives.  We lose sight of our true greatness, a greatness of spirit that comes to life in us as we are remade by the grace and the glory of the one who came in service to others.  In his life of perfect generosity we see an image of God’s purpose for every human life.  It is a purpose that holds good, even when, on a personal level, we experience loss.  It holds good, even when we experience suffering.  It holds good, even when we experience, poverty, and homelessness, and failure.  Because on the personal level, that’s what Jesus experienced, and he accepted it--not because suffering and death are desirable in themselves, but out of the depth of his love, the breadth of his hope, the power of his faith in God’s plan.

I will always be grateful to Bishop Swing of the Diocese of California for trusting that God’s call to the priesthood sometimes paints outside the familiar lines.  It’s a trust I’ve tried to repay in my ministry by being open to the working of God’s purpose in all kinds of people and every sort of circumstance.  And as we celebrate our Stewardship Season at St. John’s, I think it is important for us to be grateful that God’s plan for us is greater than meeting the needs of our own parish.  So this week we have a couple of opportunities to reflect together on that more comprehensive plan.  On Wednesday evening we will gather to break bread and enjoy our friendship, and then to have a conversation about God’s vision for the future of our congregation, and what it might call us to do to take loving care for the whole Earth.  And this morning, as we did at this time last year, we welcome a representative of the Committee on the Shelterless (COTS), which does such fine work on our behalf, helping people in our community to maintain their faith in God’s plan for their lives, when they have no place to stay. 

Laborers to the Harvest

Isaiah 6:1‑8

Ephesians 4:7,11‑16

Matthew 9:35‑38 

 A couple of weeks ago I was meeting with Mack to plan today’s service and I complained to him in a joking kind of way about our Bishop’s timing.   Less than three months ago, he had scheduled his biennial visitation to St. John’s for two weeks after Christmas, and now we’re having this ordination two weeks before Easter.  Mack laughed and said it was an indication of the confidence our Bishop has in St. John’s, Petaluma.  Which is no doubt true, so on behalf of all the people of the parish I want to thank Bishop Beisner for the compliment.   

And because Mack doesn’t have the opportunity do so in this liturgy, I want to say a word of thanks on his behalf, as well as my own, to all the people of St. John’s who helped to prepare for this occasion—I never cease to be amazed at the way this group of people works together to accomplish beautiful things for the love of God and neighbor.  I also want to thank everyone who traveled to be here, Mack’s family and friends, clergy of the Diocese of Northern California and elsewhere in the Episcopal Church—it is powerful testimony to our unity in Christ and his grace to reconcile and make new that we are all here together in this place today. 

And as much as the scheduling of this service may have been inconvenient, (which, in truth, was not very much), it is also most fitting.  Because, although there are brass candlesticks and flowers adorning the altar, and the church is decked in red, and not purple, we are still in the season of Lent.  We are still in that season of the church year when we learn again to walk humbly with our God.  We are still in that time when we learn that to be born anew into the freedom of limitless love, we have to cross the threshold of powerlessness and surrender.  And as much as today is a moment of resurrection in Mack’s life, in the life of St. John’s, Petaluma and the Episcopal Church, it is also a Lenten moment. 

Today is a feast of victory over prejudice and exclusion.  It is a day to celebrate the triumph of determination and patience, hope and courage and faith.  And it is also a day to remember the price that was paid to get us to this moment.  Today we celebrate and affirm a vocation to the priesthood that almost didn’t happen.  We do so in a congregation that almost died.  It sounds stark when you put it like that, but sometimes when we experience things that we would rather avoid, gifts of power come to us.  There’s something about such experiences that can strip away our illusions and leave us with a clearer vision of what’s going on and what we’re supposed to be doing.   The Lenten stories about what led Mack to give up on his call to the priesthood, and about what happened at St. John’s, Petaluma in 2006 and the years that followed, are integral to the Easter story of how they both got back on their feet.

And what makes this such a powerful story, what is going to make Mack such a transformative priest in the church, is the way these things happened together.  The vision that brought Mack to St. John’s is the same vision that reawakened his vocation to the priesthood.  It the same vision that is rebuilding this congregation from a half-dozen people meeting in Betty and Joe Petrillo’s living room.  It is a vision of God. 

The God of this vision is not content to sit on a throne in heaven and be fanned by the wings of the seraphim.  This God is seeking a people.  To have a vision of this God is to face a problem more daunting than homophobia, more challenging than schism.  To see this God is to be thrust into a difficulty harder to overcome than the loss of a church building.  It is enough to make you cry out, “Woe is me!  I am a person of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”  Because the vision of God that called St. John’s, Petaluma back to life, the same vision that called Mack back to the priesthood, is a vision that demands a response.  To see this God is to be sent, to be sent to renew God’s people. 

As that handful of Episcopalians became too big for a living room and celebrated its first public service on Easter Sunday five years ago, a new people began to gather.  They came seeking the vision, and soon enough, they received it.   And before they knew it, they were sent.  Some were sent to be Senior and Junior Wardens, others, like Jeremy, to be Treasurer.  They were sent as Choir Leaders and Organists and Altar Guild Directors.  They were sent to start a Food Pantry and Taizé services and Labyrinth Walks.  They were sent to a Godly Play Sunday School, and an Estate and Stuff Sale.  And it was really inevitable, when you think about it, that one of them would be sent to be a priest.  Because that is how true vocations to the priesthood happen.  A priest is sent because a people are gathering in response to a vision of God.

There is an old commercial dish sanitizer in the kitchen here at St. John’s, and when I first came here, Mack and Jeremy were the only people in the parish who knew how to operate it.  Whenever we had a fellowship event we had to be sure Mack and Jeremy were coming before we got out the ceramic plates and metal flatware.  They knew that the machine really is not that difficult to operate and anyone could do it if they could just overcome their fear of it, but they were always good-humored about it.  They were always happy to serve.  Well, last fall I received a sign that the Spirit was leading Mack deeper into the mystery of his vocation, when I heard he was teaching some other folks how to operate the dish-sanitizer.  If you hang around to the end of the luncheon that follows this service, you may even see them in action.  And here’s the thing—Mack would have been happy to teach them all along.  But it finally happened when some people were ready to learn.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus has a vision of God.  He’s going around Galilee in all the towns and villages, preaching about it.  And who wants to hear what Jesus has to say?  Who starts gathering around him?  The sick, the blind, the mute, lepers, the demon-possessed, the tax-collectors and prostitutes, all the people who are so beaten-down and burned-out by injustice and false promises that they’re not even trying to be good anymore.  And Jesus looks around at all this misery and what does he see?  An abundant harvest.   Fields full of fat, white, ears of perfect ripe grain.  A rich spiritual harvest of people without illusions, without a vested interest in the idols of status quo.  People who are done waiting for some future deliverance, people who are ready for God.

In the villages of Galilee in Jesus’ time, bringing in the harvest is everyone’s work.  All other concerns are put aside and everyone pitches in to bring in the ripened crops before rain or hail or locusts, blight or crows or wildfire can destroy them.  You help me on my farm and when my crop is in, we go over to yours.  Anyone who isn’t actually out in the fields reaping or binding sheaves or carrying them to the threshing floor is making food for the harvesters or doing their chories, or tending the children, helping out in some way.  So when Jesus instructs his disciples to pray the Lord to send laborers into his harvest, it’s not about God lighting a fire under the butts of the lazy.  It’s about the vision of the harvest.  Pray that God will help you see the abundant harvest of spiritual opportunity that is all around you in the suffering of your community.  Pray that more people will see that now is the time.  

Mack, somewhere out there is another congregation that needs you now more than we do.  Somewhere God is giving that people a vision of the harvest.  They are praying that the Lord will send laborers into his harvest, and as they pray it is dawning on them that the laborers are them.  And where such a people are, God will send a priest, and though nobody but She knows it yet, that priest will be you.  We are not in a hurry for that day, but we know that it will come.  And because we know how you were called, we know you will be sent, not as an answer to their prayer, but as one who sustains them in praying it.  You will feed them with the bread of the harvest that they long for, the harvest that is already ripe in Christ’s vision of the Kingdom.  And they will feed you, in ways that you can’t even begin to imagine here today.  It is a good road that has brought you here, my brother.  It is a good road you are walking.  It is a good road that lies ahead.  May God bless you and keep you on that road.  AMEN.