December 21, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

2 Samuel 7″ 1-5 8-12, 14-16 + Psalm 89 + Romans 16: 25-27 + Luke 1:26-38

I am not sure if it is totally the fault of our “television world” or if there are other factors at play, but there are few facts to contradict a claim that we have become a spectator people. Too many of our children watch sports and so too many are overweight, and that continues into adulthood. It is not just about sports, however. We have become a people who watch at the cost of action. Half of the people in this church watch what is going on and think that watching is what they came for. The hymnals stay in the pews, arms are folded, while they watch others at worship or withdraw into silent reflections as others lift their hearts and voices in the action of worship. We have watched the rich and powerful loot the retirement funds of people whose honest and hard work have made them rich and powerful. We have watched women and children become homeless while we rummage around for weapons of mass destruction, and we shake our heads helplessly in the face of genocide in foreign places whose names we cannot pronounce. The enormous complexity of a shrinking world that is always in our face not only leaves us sitting still but often sitting on our hands fearful and confused about what to do, so we just watch.

The consequence of this has a spiritual dimension which today’s Gospel subtly and quietly addresses. The spectator will know the story but not know what to do with it. The spectator will likely turn the story into a Christmas pageant, a move, or a wonderful painting to look at. It makes for an easy life, uncluttered by questions, demands, and expectations. The Gospel is not entertainment. It is not news like “Five Live” or “20-20” that we watch from an easy chair before supper. The Gospel is a call to action, a plan for life in the Kingdom of God.

Spectators will hear this Gospel and wonder what angels look like, how a woman might conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is all very fine to build from this story a huge tradition and spirituality surrounding the Blessed Mother. But to stop there in wonder and admiration is to be like the disciples who stood on a hill and heard a voice say, “Why are you standing here looking up into the sky?” There is no point other than entertainment and pious admiration in standing in awe before the details of this story. At some point, at some time, every one of us must ask the question, “What does this mean?” “How am I different because of it?”

This is not just a story about the beginning of our salvation. It is our story. A virgin in Nazareth is not the only person who has been visited by an angel. A woman betrothed to a man named, Joseph is not the only person graced and favored by God. A woman named Mary is not the only person who has been afraid and faced with difficult, life-plan changing decisions. What is ultimately revealed to us in this Gospel is the mystery of how the Word takes Flesh every day. What is revealed here is the path of Spiritual conception: hearing a transcendent Word, struggling to understand it, and finally uniting our will to that Word. That Word awakens us to our identity – it speaks of who we are as God’s beloved and chosen. We began this liturgy with the words of the angel speaking to us and about us: The Lord is with you.

An eastern Bishop reflects upon our awakening to this wonder and suggests that we all have a “virgin point” within us. The secret center of our hearts, a deep sub conscious point that is walled up and unformed until God visits. It is the place where God meets each of us, a place to which only God has access, and when God enters that place, we are totally God’s own and alive only with the Spirit of God. We are not accustomed to thinking of ourselves this way, and we need to ponder a greeting that names us in this way. When willing to do so, a profound transformation takes place, a profound personal truth is realized. We are no longer physical and social beings struggling to promote and protect ourselves and provide for our children. We will know what it means to be sons and daughters of God. We will then be struggling to change physical and social reality to reflect our common innate dignity. Our little plans and self-centered ambitions will have to be integrated into a more comprehensive vision. It does not happen fast, and it does not happen without questions and more pondering. It does not happen without some fear. Playing it safe is a strong habit to break. Risking all is dangerous territory.

This is what this story is about my friends: you and me with a God who seeks access to that hidden place within us still to be formed into an image of God. This is what the annunciation is ultimately about: an annunciation that speaks of our identity and what God wishes us to become. What unfolds in this story is the suggestion that finally, after pondering we come to understand, and then with a courage that can come only from the Spirit, we consent to the Will of God and say “Yes” to a Spirit that will bring to life what is hidden deep within us from the beginning.

There are annunciations of one sort or another in each of our lives. Some of these result in great destinies undertaken unwillingly. Some of them result in a refusal or denial or perhaps in a teeth gritting reluctance. Some of them lead us embrace the radical agenda of a Gospel that insists that the meek will inherit everything and the powerful will come tumbling down. Either way, once we consent, we are no longer spectators.

There is a difficult truth here. Many would point to the privilege of Mary and in doing so, take themselves off the hook. Angelic visits are for special people after all, they think. I think otherwise because of Luke. Every life is visited by revelations and calls to commitment. We either agree reluctantly becoming joyless people cursed by our own call, or we turn away in weakness and say, “Not me.” Some would think that when this happens, God closes the gates and rescinds the offer. I think Luke tells us this story because God sends another angel and still waits for our understanding and our consent.

December 08, 2008 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Genesis 3: 9-15, 20 + Ephesians 1: 3-6, 11-12 + Luke 1: 26-38

The Gospel for today tells us three things about Mary that she was “Full of Grace”; that she had “found favor with the Lord” and was the “handmaid of the Lord.” The model of believers, a woman of faith, and the first one to bear the light of Christ into this world is described by Luke in terms of what we shall become if we are attentive to her example. When the church suggests that we think of Mary as a new Eve, we are invited to think of this woman in terms of what God originally had planned for us, a plan rejected by the first Eve and her companion in their pride and sin. In the divine plan to restore creation to its Original design, there comes a new Eve who is what each of us was intended to be: full of grace, favored by God, and a humble servant of this loving Creator/God.

The day after reflecting upon beginnings the recreation that Mark’s Gospel announced yesterday, we have before us a model of what we should have been but yet can still become. While the doctrine of this feast speaks to Mary’s Immaculate Conception, the truth of this feast speaks of what our Creator/God has intended and willed for us all from the beginning. In Christ creation begins again, and the new Eve graced, favored, and humble is this time without the sin of the first Eve.

All so that we too might be born into this creation full grace, favored by the Lord, and humble in his service. This is what we too become when the power of the Spirit comes upon us, when the power of the Spirit leads us to say, “Yes” rather than “No” to the will of God. This is what we become when we awaken to the power and grace of our Baptism and how the Lord has favored us with a faith that leads into the mystery of his presence leaving us humbled by a love that so heals and strengthens us that we can be nothing more than be God’s humble servant.

Full of Grace is what God would have be.

We are a people who have found favor with God or we would never be in this place.

We are called to be God’s servants – to fulfill God’s will – and to humbly and faithfully bear the presence of God’s Son into this world.

Mary stands before us today as the model of what we shall be, of what God has willed from the beginning, and as a reminder that in Christ, all creation is new for those who say “Yes” to the Will of the Father. Redeemed by the Blood of Christ and washed in the water of salvation, we are full of grace, and live in the favor of God. Coming to understand this can have only one consequence that we shall serve the Lord all the days of our lives.

December 7, 2008 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11 + Psalm 85 + 2 Peter 3: 8-14 + Mark 1:1-8

            Beginnings and endings are sometimes difficult to tell apart. Which one is which often depends on which way you are looking: backwards or forwards. Graduation is a perfect example. I’ve received several announcements this week from young people who are graduating. It may be the end of formal education or the beginning of a career. It seems as though we have fairly well caught that idea when we call the ceremony involved: “Commencement.” While something is ending, something is also beginning. For us who believe, death is no more an ending than birth. A pregnancy may end, but it means something begins.

            The opening of the Gospel of Mark is unique and significant. In the first verse, he announces a beginning; and to those rooted in the First Testament, there is a sudden parallel, a kind of connection that makes sense in terms of what follows. The first book of the Bible is called the Book of Beginnings, and the first word of Mark’s Gospel is beginning. The connection between the two is no accident – this message of Mark is about creation beginning again, but there is no ending: no ending to the Hebrew Scriptures, and Mark’s Gospel is notorious for having no ending. It simply seems to stop, or perhaps to “pause.” All of which makes some sense in this season when endings and beginnings seem to blur a bit because with Creator God it’s always going to be about beginnings.

            There is a saying among those who work with groups and process that it “begins before it begins.” Practically speaking, it means that if a group is getting together at 9:00, at 8:45 when they arrive, things are already happening. It’s like that with Mass. It does not really begin when I invoke the Trinity in blessing. Today’s Mass began when you focused on getting here, and what happened along the way has a great deal to do with how this liturgy is going to go for all of us. On another level, we bring our history to this assembly, and what we remember, and what we experienced in the past has everything to do with what happens today. It’s true: “things begin before they begin.” All this speaks to something important for this season and something deeply involved in the message of John: readiness.

            Years after I left the seminary, I went back for a reunion or some meeting, I can’t remember which; and I sat down at dinner with one of my professors. As we sat and talked, I was stunned at the man’s wisdom, his humor, the breadth of his knowledge, and I found myself clinging to every word and idea. Later that evening, I was wondering: “When did he get so smart and so charming?” The more I wondered about it, I began to realize that he had not changed a bit. It was me. When I was twenty, I thought he was boring, aloof, and out of it; and here I was fifteen years later completely enchanted by the same man. I began to wish I could do some of that time I had spent there over again; but of course we rarely get that chance. The issue was simply a matter of readiness. I wasn’t ready at age twenty.

            The question of readiness is part of the reason why some of the people at the time of Jesus did not listen. It is because they were not exposed to Christ, not that they failed to see the miracles or hear is voice; it was simply a matter of not being ready. It is a matter of what we can and will let in, hear, and integrate. There are a lot of factors that make for readiness, but the chief among them is desire, and desire is what I ask you to reflect upon in this second week of advent.

            Desire in Mark’s Gospel is a big issue. He tells again and again of huge crowds frantic with a desire to see Jesus, to hear Jesus, to meet Jesus. This image ought to give us reason to wonder about what it is we desire in this life. The people who flocked to hear John the Baptist heard him say something about beginnings, and they thought it was about endings, so in a desire to be ready for the end of time which they thought the Messiah would bring, they rushed to his baptism playing the odds that it would protect them from eternal destruction. Their desire to shed their sins was a last ditch effort to save themselves.

            But instead of an end, what they got was a beginning; a chance for a future which they could enjoy if they had the desire and were ready. John’s work and John’s message are still with us because it begins before it begins. Before Jesus begins, John has already started, and if there is no end to Mark’s Gospel, it is because the beginning has already begun and endings are always beginnings. Before Jesus begins, His Spirit is already at work, and the evidence of readiness is desire. Our readiness for the coming of Christ is measured by our desire. Our readiness for a life in Christ is measured by our openness the desire for conversion and repentance that shows itself in our willingness to change and be changed. The weariness and dullness of life lived for puny pleasures has little hope for a beginning. A past that is intolerable because of its desperate shallowness, loneliness, and emptiness drives people to the desert where a voice still cries out: “Be Ready”!  Not for Christmas on December 25, but for a beginning that will satisfy our deepest desires and longings, and find us ready to begin again new and whole, and clean and pure, holy, and faithful. This kind of readiness needs an uncommon openness, a freedom, a willingness to be surprised to discover that just when we thought everything was over it was just beginning, just when we thought we might be finished, we had really just begun. That would be really good news.

December 7, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11 + Psalm 85 + 2 Peter 3: 8-14 + Mark 1:1-8

            Beginnings and endings are sometimes difficult to tell apart. Which one is which often depends on which way you are looking: backwards or forwards. Graduation is a perfect example. I’ve received several announcements this week from young people who are graduating. It may be the end of formal education or the beginning of a career. It seems as though we have fairly well caught that idea when we call the ceremony involved: “Commencement.” While something is ending, something is also beginning. For us who believe, death is no more an ending than birth. A pregnancy may end, but it means something begins.

            The opening of the Gospel of Mark is unique and significant. In the first verse, he announces a beginning; and to those rooted in the First Testament, there is a sudden parallel, a kind of connection that makes sense in terms of what follows. The first book of the Bible is called the Book of Beginnings, and the first word of Mark’s Gospel is beginning. The connection between the two is no accident – this message of Mark is about creation beginning again, but there is no ending: no ending to the Hebrew Scriptures, and Mark’s Gospel is notorious for having no ending. It simply seems to stop, or perhaps to “pause.” All of which makes some sense in this season when endings and beginnings seem to blur a bit because with Creator God it’s always going to be about beginnings.

            There is a saying among those who work with groups and process that it “begins before it begins.” Practically speaking, it means that if a group is getting together at 9:00, at 8:45 when they arrive, things are already happening. It’s like that with Mass. It does not really begin when I invoke the Trinity in blessing. Today’s Mass began when you focused on getting here, and what happened along the way has a great deal to do with how this liturgy is going to go for all of us. On another level, we bring our history to this assembly, and what we remember, and what we experienced in the past has everything to do with what happens today. It’s true: “things begin before they begin.” All this speaks to something important for this season and something deeply involved in the message of John: readiness.

            Years after I left the seminary, I went back for a reunion or some meeting, I can’t remember which; and I sat down at dinner with one of my professors. As we sat and talked, I was stunned at the man’s wisdom, his humor, the breadth of his knowledge, and I found myself clinging to every word and idea. Later that evening, I was wondering: “When did he get so smart and so charming?” The more I wondered about it, I began to realize that he had not changed a bit. It was me. When I was twenty, I thought he was boring, aloof, and out of it; and here I was fifteen years later completely enchanted by the same man. I began to wish I could do some of that time I had spent there over again; but of course we rarely get that chance. The issue was simply a matter of readiness. I wasn’t ready at age twenty.

            The question of readiness is part of the reason why some of the people at the time of Jesus did not listen. It is because they were not exposed to Christ, not that they failed to see the miracles or hear is voice; it was simply a matter of not being ready. It is a matter of what we can and will let in, hear, and integrate. There are a lot of factors that make for readiness, but the chief among them is desire, and desire is what I ask you to reflect upon in this second week of advent.

            Desire in Mark’s Gospel is a big issue. He tells again and again of huge crowds frantic with a desire to see Jesus, to hear Jesus, to meet Jesus. This image ought to give us reason to wonder about what it is we desire in this life. The people who flocked to hear John the Baptist heard him say something about beginnings, and they thought it was about endings, so in a desire to be ready for the end of time which they thought the Messiah would bring, they rushed to his baptism playing the odds that it would protect them from eternal destruction. Their desire to shed their sins was a last ditch effort to save themselves.

            But instead of an end, what they got was a beginning; a chance for a future which they could enjoy if they had the desire and were ready. John’s work and John’s message are still with us because it begins before it begins. Before Jesus begins, John has already started, and if there is no end to Mark’s Gospel, it is because the beginning has already begun and endings are always beginnings. Before Jesus begins, His Spirit is already at work, and the evidence of readiness is desire. Our readiness for the coming of Christ is measured by our desire. Our readiness for a life in Christ is measured by our openness the desire for conversion and repentance that shows itself in our willingness to change and be changed. The weariness and dullness of life lived for puny pleasures has little hope for a beginning. A past that is intolerable because of its desperate shallowness, loneliness, and emptiness drives people to the desert where a voice still cries out: “Be Ready”!  Not for Christmas on December 25, but for a beginning that will satisfy our deepest desires and longings, and find us ready to begin again new and whole, and clean and pure, holy, and faithful. This kind of readiness needs an uncommon openness, a freedom, a willingness to be surprised to discover that just when we thought everything was over it was just beginning, just when we thought we might be finished, we had really just begun. That would be really good news.

November 30, 2008 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Isaiah 63: 16-17, 19 + Psalm 80 + 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 + Mark 13:33-37

            Years ago, I was pastor at Saint Joseph Church in Union City, a place put on the map by a tornado that nearly destroyed the town just a couple of years before I came. Until the big one that tore through Cleveland County not long ago, it was the “big one” that everyone talked about and studied. Because of it, darkening skies and wall clouds as we in Oklahoma know to call them always got the attention of the survivors in Union City. I remember clearly the experience of standing at the back door of the rectory which opened to the southwest any time there would be one of those great Oklahoma storms. I would stand there and watch. If I were asleep, I would get up at the sound of big thunder and go there to look out because it was only a few steps to the storm cellar. More than once, I made the jump from the doorway to the cellar in rain and hail and wind.

            The memory of that experience of standing in a doorway and watching is my own, but I believe everyone in here has done the same thing. Standing in a doorway watching and waiting is something we have all done whether we watch for a storm or for a loved one to come home, we know what it is to wait and to watch, and much of it is done from a doorway if not from a window.

            We are somehow a people who seem to be found at a threshold, in a doorway, or at the gate as the Gospel image suggests. We are almost by nature waiters and watchers, and some of us do it better than others. We have shifted today into the year of Mark’s Gospel, closing for while the Gospel of Matthew. It is a Gospel that time and time again challenges the fear that haunts us as it tells the story of faith’s growth. This is the Gospel of calming seas, of casting out unclean spirits that frighten bystanders and possessed. It is the Gospel that brings people beyond fear to awe and amazement. Who is this that wind and sea obey him? Who is this that speaks with authority? Who is this who has come among us? This kind of awe and amazement is the threshold of faith; doors that when open invite us to move from fear to awe to trust and belief.

            Today’s Gospel speaks of evening, of midnight, of cockcrow or dawn, and believers make a connection with the hours of the passion. It reminds us of sleeping disciples who fail to watch. He wakes them and they sleep again. At midnight comes Judas and a crowd, and all but Peter run away in fear. No doorway to faith opens until cockcrow when Peter’s faith is awakened and he weeps. Then comes the fourth time: the “dawn”; the hour when Mary Magdalene and her friends stand at the doorway of death and find it open.

            Think today and through this season of the doorways in our lives, of the doorway in which we stand and the thresholds over which we must pass from fear and doubt to faith and trust. There are doorways everywhere through which we encounter one another and our God. Our houses have doors. Our offices have doors. The places where we shop for food and for gifts have doors. These are thresholds where we can be awake to one another.

            Think this Advent season of these hours:  of evening when we are tired and want to give up of dark midnight moments when our fears take us over           and we run from what is hard and difficult frightening and unknown. of cockcrow that hour when we recognize that there are things in our lives we profoundly regret, things we never thought we were capable of doing. Our tears and our sorrow make us real.  That time is a threshold to cross into forgiveness and peace. of the dawn, the hour of resurrection the time of waking. Across that threshold comes the faith that life can come where there is death, that dead relationships can awaken, that dead leadership may rise up to the agony of people in need, and that closed doors and closed hearts may break open with joy.

The Gospel we proclaim today ought to alert us like gathering clouds in the western sky. In these verses, Jesus gives three commands: Be on the watch. Stay awake.

Be on guard. An open doorway is a good way to watch. An open doorway is a good way to make sure that this time when Christ comes there will be a hospitable welcome where all will be prepared rather than finding the door closed because there is no room.

November 30, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 63: 16-17, 19 + Psalm 80 + 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 + Mark 13:33-37

            Years ago I was pastor at Saint Joseph Church in Union City, a place put on the map by a tornado that nearly destroyed the town just a couple of years before I came. Until the big one that tore through Cleveland County not long ago, it was the “big one” that every one talked about and studied. Because of it, darkening skies and wall clouds as we in Oklahoma know to call them always got the attention of the survivors in Union City. I remember clearly the experience of standing at the back door of the rectory which opened to the southwest any time there would be one of those great Oklahoma storms. I would stand there and watch. If I were asleep, I would get up at the sound of big thunder and go there to look out because it was only a few steps to the storm cellar. More than once I made the jump from the doorway to the cellar in rain and hail and wind.

            The memory of that experience of standing in a doorway and watching is my own, but I believe everyone in here has done the same thing. Standing in a doorway watching and waiting is something we have all done whether we watch for a storm or for a loved one to come home, we know what it is to wait and to watch, and much of it is done from a doorway if not from a window.

            We are somehow a people who seem to be found at a threshold, in a doorway, or at the gate as the Gospel image suggests. We are almost by nature waiters and watchers, and some of us do it better than others. We have shifted today into the year of Mark’s Gospel, closing for while the Gospel of Matthew. It is a Gospel that time and time again challenges the fear that haunts us as it tells the story of faith’s growth. This is the Gospel of calming seas, of casting out unclean spirits that frighten bystanders and possessed. It is the Gospel that brings people beyond fear to awe and amazement. Who is this that wind and sea obey him? Who is this that speaks with authority? Who is this who has come among us? This kind of awe and amazement is the threshold of faith; doors that when open invite us to move from fear to awe to trust and belief.

            Today’s Gospel speaks of evening, of midnight, of cockcrow or dawn, and believers make a connection with the hours of the passion. It reminds us of sleeping disciples who fail to watch. He wakes them and they sleep again. At midnight comes Judas and a crowd, and all but Peter run away in fear. No door way to faith opens until cockcrow when Peter’s faith is awakened and he weeps. Then comes the fourth time: the “dawn”; the hour when Mary Magdalene and her friends stand at the doorway of death and find it open.

            Think today and through this season of the doorways in our lives, of the doorway in which we stand and the thresholds over which we must pass from fear and doubt to faith and trust. There are doorways everywhere through which we encounter one another and our God. Our houses have doors. Our offices have doors. The places where we shop for food and for gifts have doors. These are thresholds where we can be awake to one another.

            Think this Advent season of these hours:  of evening when we are tired and want to give up of dark midnight moments when our fears take us over           and we run from what is hard and difficult frightening and unknown. of cockcrow that hour when we recognize that there are things in our lives we profoundly regret, things we never thought we were capable of doing. Our tears and our sorrow make us real.  That time is a threshold to cross into forgiveness and peace. of the dawn, the hour of resurrection the time of waking. Across that threshold comes the faith that life can come where there is death, that dead relationships can awaken, that dead leadership may rise up to the agony of people in need, and that closed doors and closed hearts may break open with joy.

The Gospel we proclaim today ought to alert us like gathering clouds in the western sky. In these verses, Jesus gives three commands: Be on the watch. Stay awake.

Be on guard. An open doorway is a good way to watch. An open doorway is a good way to make sure that this time when Christ comes there will be a hospitable welcome where all will be prepared rather than finding the door closed because there is no room.

Ordinary time 32 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

November 9, 2008

Ezekiel 47:1-2,8-9,12 + Psalm 46 + 1 Corinthians 3:9-11,16-17 + John 2:13-22

In John’s Gospel, the first of seven signs has just been revealed at Cana’s wedding feast, and the verses we proclaim today come as a simple reflection on the sign we have just been given. As the water is replaced by wine, now we see the Temple and its worship being replaced by Jesus. He is the center. He replaces the water with himself and the temple with his presence. It is an important thing to see as the western church celebrates this Feast today with the memory of our most ancient church’s dedication in Rome.

Yet this is never about Constantine’s gift Basilica on the Lateran Hill. It is not about the Cathedral of Rome no matter how lovely it is today and how significant it is with its history and it great baptistry.  That building standing today has been in ruins more than once. The fact that the Pope now lives across the river on the Vatican hill rather than at this historical place of beginnings is a reminder that it was once uninhabitable. This feast is about Christ Jesus and His enduring presence among us, and the first name of this building that gives reason for this celebration every November 9 was first named: Church of the Savior.

Every civilization has certain places that it sets apart as holy. Mountains, Trees, Stones, and Water were especially respected and often times became a meeting place with the gods. They were the starting point or the goal of pilgrims, and as such they became places of worship. Mountains in particular were the favorite locale for cultic rites. Psychologically they were closer to the sky and a ladder to the divine. Often stones were piled high on mountains to reach even higher than the terrain would allow. In time these would evolve into tombs, temples, and shrines. These were often oriented to face the rising sun.

For more than a thousand years, the most sacred place of Judaism was the Temple on the mount that is Jerusalem. But it’s destruction by hostile invaders brought about a more spiritual worship, a religion of the heart which some prophets encouraged with a caution against excessive attachment to a temple of stone suggesting that poor and contrite hearts were a better dwelling place for God. For the first followers of Christ it became clear that Jesus was the new temple where one would encounter God, and once his death and resurrection were experienced through Pentecost, they began to see themselves, as Paul suggests, as the new temple built on the foundation or the corner stone of Christ.

It is a good reminder for us today in this beautiful church that this building is here because we are here, not the other way around. In fact, if there is someone here because of the building, this Feast comes as a challenge and a contradiction to that thinking. It is Christ the Savior that must draw us together, not bricks made by human hands. This place, like the Church of the Lateran is a gift, a gift we make to God. It can and it will come down someday, but the faith we celebrate, nurture, and share in this place does not. In this place we bear witness to the power of that faith to give life and hope, to give light and voice the faith we share. This is the goal of our pilgrimage through the past week. We come to this church like pilgrims, and like so many other sacred and holy places, it reaches high toward the sky, and as you enter, you face the east looking for risen and coming light.

This is a place of covenant; of feasting; of proclaiming. It is place of sacrifice; a meeting place where God is revealed in sacrament, song, and service. Water flows here at the entrance. Look at it. Touch it.

See the three sources that flow from the font and collect in the pool below. Be reminded of the Trinity and the power of those names. The prophet’s promise is fulfilled in this place and among us.

Our churches are for us a mirror that reminds us who we are. The world says we are consumers flashing a constant stream of icons to remind us of this and make us want more. The church reminds us of our deepest identity, a people of diversity who become one in Christ Jesus and in whom dwells the Spirit of the Living God. It reminds us that we are not alone, but in here are surrounded by statues and icons to remind us as Paul says: that “we are fellow citizens with the saints”. This day we celebrate what we have become in Christ: a prophetic people, a priestly people, a holy people.

October 26, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Exodus 20: 20-26 + Psalm 18 + 1 Thessalonians 1: 5-10 + Matthew 22: 34-40

Two words leap from the Epistle of Paul today to describe what is characteristic of the Christian life: serve and await. These are things that run contrary to twenty-first century life.We are accustomed to being served, and we don’t wait well.Suddenly Paul’s letter might just as well address the church of Norman as well as the church of Thessalonica.I believe that keeping these two characteristics together is important if we are to get into the thinking of Saint Paul.We must remember that this wise and passionate apostlewas first of all a pastor who was writing and addressing real experiences and issues in the lives of his friends.

So, I don’t think he is proposing service as a novel idea to those he addresses. He has already praised their goodness. Through out the letter he acknowledges the good things they have been doing. It is because of those things that he must encourage them since they are so good and so faithful, that they have been drawing attention to themselves. He acknowledges that they have turned from idols and that they have become imitators of himself and the Lord so much so that they are becoming models of faithful life as stewards of God’s gifts.

The problem arises with the second characteristic: waiting. They don’t like it. They tire of it. They want results, and they want them now. They want their reward, and when it does not come on their time, Paul knows it’s time to write a letter to remind them that you can’t just serve expecting gratitude, rewards, or results, you also have to wait.

Loyal service and patient waiting are the marks of faithful disciples.

Without the second part of this experience, the first part is often undone. Too often we give up or quit when there is no recognition of our service. Too often when we do the right thing and nothing gets better, we try something else rather than wait. What Paul would have us understand is that glory must be awaited with confidence, and it is slow in coming. You see, those Thessalonians expected Christ to come and acknowledge the risks they were taking by their willingness to abandon the idols and serve others rather than themselves. They wanted it now. They expected Christ to come and reward their loyalty and their service with glory and honor, and they thought was going to happen soon. The risk that Paul sees is that they might give up on service and sacrifice when rewards, gratitude, glory and honor were not forthcoming. Instead of being honored by fellow Thessalonians, these followers of Christ were ridiculed, abused, imprisoned, and scorned. It would be enough to make anyone return to the old ways of “taking care of number one”, the old ways of only doing things that provided instant gratification, or of only doing things people would admire and praise.

It cannot be so suggests Paul. We keep on serving, keep on loving, keep on giving even when things do not happen fast or exactly as we expected because we keep on waiting.

Parents, you know how that works. You continue to love, serve, give, protect and provide for your children even when they never say thank you and continually ask, “Is that all?” You wait. You wait until they grow up, and if you make it long enough, you watch them as parents, and you smile. Waiting is the mark of fidelity, the mark of a true follower of Christ. It means you don’t quit. Your children may leave you, reject your faith, question your values and judgments; but you keep on waiting. They may run away, but you wait like the father of the two sons who waits and watches.

Young people, hear what Paul teaches us. If you do things for glory and recognition now, you’ll have none later. If you keep your eyes fixed on later, on anther time, another age, or another life, you get closer to what Paul suggests is the way real followers of Christ live. He never gave up on those twelve. He waited for the Holy Spirit to come and finish in their hearts what he began, and in a sense he wasn’t there to see it; but he was willing to wait for God’s promise to be fulfilled. Serve and wait. It’s what we do. It’s how we live. It’s how we are faithful. This world doesn’t get it, but Paul would has

October 19, 2008 at Saint Mark Norman, OK

Isaiah 45: 1, 4-6 + Psalm 96 + 1 Thessalonians1: 1-5 + Matthew 22:15-21

There is a profound distinction to be made when pondering Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, and it is one that easily escapes us in our choice laden world; in a society that prizes “choice” above justice and too often above life itself.

Throughout this letter, Paul reminds his readers that they have been chosen by God, but somehow that never seems to sink in.

We like the privilege of choosing, but no matter how hard we try convincing ourselves, our presence here, our very existence is not intentional. We did not choose to be born, we do not choose life, God does, and thinking otherwise is the root of great evil.

I did not choose to wake up this morning. Nothing I did brought the dawn, and there is nothing I can do to bring another. Paul wants us to understand that the first choice is God’s, and other choices come from God’s first choice.

We might like to think that we made a choice to be Catholic, that we decided to get here for Mass today; but that’s not the way it is.

Our faith is no more intentional than our birth or our life. It is a gift from a God who has chosen us: chosen to feed us, to speak with us through His Word, chosen to be present to us in a sacramental life, listen to us, and be tolerantly patient with us while we pretend that it’s our choice. The more I am around people who come to us in the RCIA program, the more I realize who is doing the choosing. God is choosing those people for faith and this sacramental life. If God chose them, God chose me as well.

I think back sometimes to the feelings I had when as a child we would be choosing up sides for games, and how it felt to finally be chosen for one team or another and then how hard I would play to make sure they believed they had made the right choice and would chose me tomorrow. I remember what it was like when I pretended that I was choosing to be a priest only to wake up suddenly one day and realize that if the faculty and the bishop did not choose me for ordination all those years of study had taken me no where – except maybe to bring me to that realization and profound understanding that it was not I who chose the Lord, but the Lord who chose me.

You think about your lives and remember what it was like when you asked someone to be your husband or your wife. You may have thought you did the choosing, but in the end you had to wait to be chosen, and when you were, you were different. It’s the same with jobs isn’t it? You wait to be chosen for promotions or some new position, and when you get chosen, you work and perform to prove and be worthy of the choice another made in order to keep that position.

It is not much different for us when it comes to faith. We all meet people day in and day out who do not have faith or who do not share our faith. I see them often and wonder how they face and live with the trials and tragedies of life, and sometimes they do not, and then make bad choices which makes things worse.

The fact is, Paul reminds us, we have been chosen. We are by faith and by Baptism a chosen people. When we stop thinking that we’ve made the choice, we shall begin to act and live with humility and gratitude befitting a chosen and holy people. When we stop thinking that we have made the choices we shall have embraced the very heart of Christian morality, and holiness will be ours because God has chosen to make it so.

God has called us to this place. We must be here because we have heard the call and are overwhelmed by the wonder and mystery of it. We would do well to ask “why me?” but not at times of pain or disappointment, but rather at times of goodness and joy. It is the right way to stand before God, not with the pride of pretending we have chosen God; but with the humility of knowing that God has chosen us, called us, asked so little of us. Getting that right changes everything about being here, about being faithful, prayerful, present at Eucharist, just, and merciful. Paul thinks it’s time for us to get over ourselves – and get into the mystery of having been chosen and what it will mean for us and how we shall live together because of it.

October 5, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 5: 1-7 + Psalm 80 + Philippians 4: 6-9 + Matthew 21:33-43

Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell this parable. Only Matthew concludes with the proposal that the Kingdom might be taken away and given to a people who will produce fruit. It is a twist on the parable that ought to hit us all between the eyes. We have grown up in this culture with the assumption that the Kingdom of God, Heaven like everything else is always available to us if we just work hard enough and long enough. “On demand” television is just the latest toy that continues to suggest to us the false truth that we can have anything we want whenever we want it. The consequence of this thinking is our sense of entitlement. It is rampant in our nation and our generations, and even in our church. So, we tramp through the Earth’s resources, claiming its juiciest fruits for ourselves. We take the largest portion of everything there is, and if we’re not number one we sink into depression and set out to change it at all cost. It’s always struck me that there is nothing wrong with being number one unless you can’t stand being number two. At that point you have and you are a problem.

In Native American culture, people come into their own and into respect not by what they own or amass in wealth, but by what they give. Keeping wealth moving is the way gifts remain sacred. A free-market society reverses the picture: getting rather than giving is the mark of a substantial person; at that point Entitlement reigns.

Entitlement is the problem in this parable, and there is a stern warning in the Matthew version that Entitlement leads to disaster.

The chief priests and elders are asked to judge what the owner should do, and you know what they say. Their problem is they think like owners. Not for a minute do they think like tenants,

and with that they go wrong.

Saint Paul was learning to live as a tenant in the vineyard, and his relationship and his letter to the Philippians comes out of that lifestyle. When he suggests to them that they should “keep in doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me” he is not saying: “Look at me.” Look how good I am.”

He is proposing that they must become what he has become: an example. They must set example of what it means to be a steward in the vineyard of the Lord. This is the heavy burden, the weighty responsibility we have as followers of Christ. We are to provide an example for others. Parents, it is what you must become for your children: examples of what is true, what is honorable, what is just, what is pure, what is lovely, what is gracious, and what is excellent. What you learned and received is what you must pass on. This is what produces good fruit.

You may not be more concerned about your child’s career than you are about their soul. You may not be more concerned about their ability to play sports than you are about their ability to pray. You may not be more concerned about their friends than you are about their friendship with Christ. You may not be more concerned about their attendance at school than their attendance at this feast. Example is what we must provide. We must give example to each other by the charity of our talk and our judgments. We must give example to each other by how we give not by what we keep.

Paul singles out for the Philippians and for us the qualities that are the fruits of this vineyard. They are not the stuff we buy or want. They are not found at the Mall or on line. They are not what we wear, what we drive, or how we look. They are not prestige, power, influence, or success measured by wealth. They are gentleness, peace, concern for justice and an absence of worry.

A people who wish for the peace of God can only find it and live in it when they have embraced the life of stewardship and see themselves as tenants in this vineyard: tenants from whom the master expects some fruits. We have no reason to expect anything except the master’s return and a time to give an account of our stewardship here. The fruit will come from the example we have given, and the example we have led.