June 29, 2008 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Acts 12: 1-11 + Psalm 34 + Timothy 4: 6-8, 17-18 + Matthew 16:13-19

A fisherman and a tent maker are put before us by the universal church on this date every year. They are an “odd couple” just as unlikely a pair as the characters portrayed by Walter Matthau and Jack Lemon in that film, “The Odd Couple” that came out in 1968, forty years ago! One is a neat-freak and the other a slob. Separated from their wives and families, they end up sharing an apartment together. At the risk of trivializing Peter and Paul, it strikes me that the two of them are in some ways quite like the characters in that film. Peter, the neat freak wants everything done by the book and according to the rules. In a conflict overrule keeping, he appeals to James in Jerusalem to settle a dispute. It’s a classic conflict: keep the letter of the law or bend the letter to discover the spirit and purpose of the law. Then there is Paul, who in some ways is the other character. He stirs up things, brings in gentiles and gets everything confused for those who liked things neat and orderly.

It strikes me that the two of them a still a good image of our church today: a people who are both Peter and Paul, a people who need things neat and yet a people who can live with a little mess; a people who lean to the right and lean to the left; rule keepers and makers, and rule benders or breakers. Regardless of those differences, there is a fidelity to Jesus Christ and His mission that is indistinguishable, and we find in them both a passion for the Gospel’s Good News, and the Kingdom of God as Jesus proclaimed it and as they experienced with him; a kingdom of forgiveness and mercy, of justice and peace.

They are real people, this fisherman and this tent maker. They both spent time in prison, but as Paul points out in one of his epistles, “nothing can imprison the Word of the Lord.” So, in spite of the extra ordinary precautions of double chains and a large contingent of guards, Peter gets out. No force of this world is stronger than the force of the church at prayer says the story we’ve just read in Acts of the Apostles. What we see here is that the prayer of a Spirit filled community is greater than Herod’s soldiers. Perhaps Luke in recording this incident would want us to get that point.

It also occurs to me that there is much of Peter and Paul in each of us as well as in our church. We are, every one of us, a people not terribly consistent nor perfectly tuned to the mission to which we have been called in faith. Peter with his denials, his inattentive dozing while Jesus is in agony, and Paul with his outright persecution of believers fairly well describe the kind of people who have been entrusted with the mission of Christ so powerfully suggested by the image of the keys. Neither Peter nor Paul got off to a great start, but it’s how they ended that matters. We find in their story the truth that it is never too late to change, there is nothing we have done that is so awful or unfaithful that God’s grace cannot help us move beyond, and when we do wonderful things can happen in and through us.

Peter and Paul are in the end, nothing more than you and me. Human beings, graced, touched by God’s hand. Like Peter, we sleep too much, and sometimes we have to shaken awake. Who knows, it might well be an angel that does so: an angel that looks like a tragedy or a near calamity, or maybe just a sudden insight and moment of clarity. The truth we proclaim here is not about historical figures of Peter and Paul; but about you and me, called and chosen by God formed by the blood of Christ into church for the sake of sacrifice and service, reconciliation and healing.

God is at work in us no less than in Paul and in Peter. These men call us today to make their lives and their deaths worthwhile by continuing the mission for which they gave all. We are the Timothy Paul so treasures and instructs. We testify to the world and to one another. We speak always for the holiness of life – of all life even in a world where it often seems impossible to effect much change.

If we have even a portion of the same Spirit that filled these two, we do not and cannot be silent in the face of injustice. Our deeds must match our words, and our values must match our vision. The Spirit of the Risen Christ will break any chain and open the door of anything that imprisons us. By that Spirit, we can and we must become attentive to the consequences of our decisions every minute of every day. Our lives will be the sermon we preach. We shall begin to question and cry out when price of gasoline takes food away from hungry children whose parents work hard while oil companies post record incomes and pay dividends from their profits leaving out those who have nothing with which to buy the stock and share the profit. We shall pass up cheap shirts that put others out of work, and we shall pay attention when people like animals are exploited for the profit of those who need no more profit. The unemployed and the uninsured are the concern of everyone when the Spirit of the Risen Christ has seized the hearts and minds of faithful people who are awake and not held captive by the powerful of this world.

A fisherman and a tent maker stand before us today as the freest people on the face of this earth. They were not rich, and they had no power. Yet they did not succumb to feelings of helplessness, and they never found silence convenient. It should be so for us: a people who share their faith, their humble beginnings and stumbling efforts. They lived and died in Rome – the seat of all earthly power. It was the most powerful and most wealthy nation on earth. They stood in the face of that power, and two thousand year later all that power is gone but the Spirit they shared, that unlikely pair still lives in you and me regardless of the superficial differences we may have about what’s neat and what’s messy, what is good and what is better.

There is a power that can change the world in us, and it will do so even as it changes us from within. For that Spirit we should give thanks, and then be set free.

Exodus 19: 2-6 + Psalm 100 + Romans 5: 6-11 + Matthew 9:35 – 10:8

You can almost sense the pace at which he is moving. There is no suggestion that he was on a stroll around the countryside enjoying the scenery. He was motivated and on the move. He was not in some of the towns and villages, he was in them all, and Matthew tells us what kept him going: compassion. He saw something wrong and set about the business of doing something about it. What he saw, he knew should not be happening. Those who should have been doing something were not, so he did. That is what is going on here. This is what Matthew leads us into – a revelation of what one’s identity as a follower and disciple of Christ must be: people of compassion who see something wrong and make it right.

What is revealed here is not the mission of Jesus Christ, but the mission God has planned for God’s people. Jesus is clever when he invites these people to pray for laborers. He knows that if they do so, it will gradually dawn upon them that they are the laborers for which they are praying. It will finally become clear to them that blaming someone else for the way things are while doing nothing about it oneself is more of a problem than the fact that no one is doing anything.

We have become a culture of blame; our children learn it early on. Our leaders do it all the time, passing the blame from one party to the other, and from one country to another. The consequence of all this blame is all the more problematic because we are becoming numb to the disasters and problem around us. The media brings a typhoon one day and an earthquake the next. The homeless in our country because of mortgage failures is eclipsed by the homeless in another place because of floods, and the more we watch, the more numb we become and then caught up in that numbness, we do nothing except wonder: “Why doesn’t someone do something?”

Into that mess of paralysis comes Matthew chapter nine and what it reveals. The “someone” who can do something about almost everything sits in this church in the presence of the Lord, being taught by his Word, and called by his grace. Our prayer here must not be for the Lord to send laborers unless we are willing to get up and labor. What the disciples discovered is what we must also discover: we are the ones called and sent, disturbed by compassion and strengthened by grace.

We think about vocations to the priesthood as though it should be someone else’s job, as though it should be some other country or culture who should come here and provide for us what we will not provide for ourselves.

We look at the failure of health care, of education, of transportation, and it’s failure we are looking at: and at best we wonder whey someone will not fix the problem. At worst, we have become so paralyzed by the complexity and conflicting solutions that we don’t even ask anymore.

We do have that luxury. We do not have a call to be served or be waited upon. We have no privilege except the privilege of faith, and it’s call to service, to responsibility, and to an identity that in every life bears some obvious and serious resemblance to the life of Jesus Christ. We cannot allow ourselves to be anesthetized to the pain of this world. Compassion must still and always stir in the depths of our hearts, and when it does, we shall be moving around to all the towns and villages and know that we have what it takes to experience the Kingdom of Heaven. We find here, we celebrate here and live it out there today and everyday.

June 8, 2008 at Saint Mark Norman, OK

Hosea 6: 3- 6 + Psalm 50 + Romans 4: 18-25 + Matthew 9: 9-13

By the time the prophet Hosea is writing and preaching, the Hebrews had taken the revelation to Moses on Mt Sinai and made a fine system of law and ritual that was complex and detailed. They had pretty well put out the fire of that burning bush. In place of some real fire, they simply had their rules and an ethic and creed that shaped their morality. No wonder they could walk past a fellow human being that had been beaten, robbed, and left to die on the side of road.  They put all their confidence in that law and shaped morality around it; but Hosea tells them that this falls short of the radical morality in God’s design. Through Hosea, God complains that he is tired of their superficiality and the formalism of their law-keeping. It was as though they thought they could save themselves by keeping the law, as though not killing, not making idols, not dishonoring one’s parents, or stealing was the whole heart of morality and goodness.

Hosea was marginally effective, but only for a time. It was and still is easier to be law abiding than merciful; easier to just keep the rules than trouble oneself about misery or the suffering of another. Enter Jesus Christ, the Word Made Flesh! He troubles the rule-keepers who question his judgment about Matthew; and he quotes Hosea back them when they question his company. The morality, the ethics with which Jesus of Nazareth teaches and by which he lives are not rooted in law, but in mercy, for this is the face of God he reveals, a face of mercy.

This message and story bears frequent repetition until we get it right. In our retelling of this story, we find ourselves reliving this behavior hiding in this superficial morality with an ethic that is self protecting and self serving. It is easier to keep the rules than look past them or look into the face of suffering. Easier to just go to church, get it over with, and go home rather than learn the meaning of mercy. It is easier to lock up drug offenders and single moms than figure out the cause of their misery and suffering that led them to the drugs in the first place. It is easier to say five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys than make a significant change in ones life, attitude, or thinking.  It’s easier to throw some pocket change, a couple of bucks into that basket than make a life changing loving grateful commitment to stewardship’s tithing. It is easier to break up families and deport the so called “illegal” than do something about the misery they flee.

This Gospel today is Mercy in your face. “Go and learn the meaning of it.” says Jesus to the good rule keepers. Matthew, a sinner like any and all of us, is invited into the school of mercy. “Follow Me.” is not an invitation to go for a walk. It is an opportunity to learn mercy, and if we kept on reading Matthew’s ninth chapter, we would get the point. For as soon as the conversation ends here a synagogue official rushes up and begs Jesus to come and save his daughter. The disciples follow Jesus to that home where Jesus is ridiculed and laughed at by a crowd who are more interested in their wailing than the presence of mercy. He puts them out – because they have blocked themselves off from life. Imagine, they laugh and scoff at mercy. Opponents of the death penalty know what that’s like, but we have been invited to learn the meaning of Mercy, so we must not laugh, but learn.

Those disciples who have tagged along are not put outside, but they stay in the house and see what happens when divine desire follows the cry of suffering. They learn there not only how to desire mercy; but how to become mercy. Yet it does not end there, for immediately Jesus returns to the crowds outside and a woman of suffering touches the hem of his garment to teach one more time the lesson of mercy. It’s about desire. It is a quality of the divine that Jesus reveals in these verses of Matthew’s Gospel.

What we must learn is that mercy is not a single act, my friends. It is a way of life. It is like the sea in which we swim. It gives us hope every day, all day. The stories of this chapter on mercy suggest that what brings mercy is desire.

We are a Matthew people, busy at our jobs, sitting at our desks, moving money around, taking all we can get however we can get it. I think that Matthew was just waiting for Jesus to come by. He gets up all too quickly. I think he was ready and waiting for the call, and when invited to follow Jesus it was no invitation to go somewhere, but an invitation to learn the meaning of mercy which is not an intellectual exercise or a rational argument. It is a matter of following along watching and listening to Jesus in action and then ever so slowly becoming mercy filled ourselves. When that day comes, and this could be it, we will put down the rocks with which we might righteously stone others and cease the laughter that mocks mercy remembering that we are all in need of mercy, and there is plenty to go around if we will just give what we expect and so desire to receive.

May 25, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Deuteronomy 8: 2-3, 14-16 + Psalm 147 + 1 Corinthians 10: 16-1 + John 6: 51-58

The Corinthians had a problem which Paul addresses today. They were great at receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, but a little short of becoming the Body and Blood of Christ. Two thousand years later that problem remains a challenge for us all. Whether we eat, adore, receive, and worship the Body of Christ is of no avail if we do not become the Body of Christ. The meaning of Eucharistic Spirituality must center on what we become because of what we do. Sitting in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament must make us more like the one whose presence is the focus of our gaze.  Receiving the Body of Christ must make us more like the one whose body and blood we consume. A few weeks back at First Communion, I said to the children: “You become what you touch.” The becoming is what communion is all about: becoming one with others, becoming Christ’s presence in this world. That is the motive, the consequence, and the reality of what we are doing here.

The struggle of the church in Corinth is no different from the struggle of the Apostles to understand what it was they were being called to become

by this one who told them he would be betrayed, broken, beaten, and killed. They wanted nothing to do with that idea. They wanted power, authority, and privilege. They quarreled among themselves who would be in charge after Christ had gone, all the while ignoring the life into which he wanted to initiate them.

The Corinthians too failed to get the point. Self satisfied, comfortable in their ways, attentive to their friends and those who could do something for them, they gathered easily for Eucharist, looking around for those they knew, and of course, hoping they would be noticed by others. All the while ignoring the poor and the hungry while they passed the plate among themselves for more than a second helping. For them the assembly had become a time to get something; for them the Eucharist was something to receive. This must not happen to us. We have more than Paul to remind us that have not come here to get something whether it’s a good feeling or a good time. We cannot arrive with our hands out ready to take. First Jesus, then Paul, then two thousand years of tradition says to us that we are here to become something or someone; and this day called: “Corpus Christi” for a time in our history and then the “Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ” is our reminder.

We can best understand this truth by paying attention to what we are given: something that has been broken. We do not receive the whole thing. We do not get something that is perfect. Broken is the point here. Broken is the life there (pointing to the crucifix). Broken to broken; a broken piece for broken lives; a broken Christ for broken people. Our brokenness becomes His brokenness so that his wholeness can become ours. It is not until we have broken or lives in service, in love, or even in sin that this Eucharistic miracle can truly and wonderfully happen. It is not until we have nothing left, until we cling to nothing more, until we have surrendered all our pomp, power, and pride that the one most humiliated and most broken of all can transform us into a Eucharistic people.

That is what Paul would have the Corinthians become, and so it must be for us. The wholeness, the unity, the oneness that the Eucharist symbolizes is not just unity with Christ, nor just unity among us, but a wholeness within that comes from healing and forgiveness. It establishes a unity that is greater than this church. The Corinthians did not seem to understand that until Paul spoke to them. This is a unity we must have with the poor and the helpless, those left behind, those who have no power, influence, no voice, or no home; refugees and immigrants included. We may not assume that the unity established by this sacrament is with those who are like us. We would need no sacramental challenge or grace for that accomplishment. The sacrament calls us to unity with those who are NOT like us, with those who have broken away, or feel left behind.

On a Saturday in April I said to the seven-year-olds here for their First Communion: “You become what you touch.” The children understood that, and we can go deeper with that thought. In the Incarnation, God touched human nature and the Word become Flesh; and we began to reflect the Divine Image by which we have been touched. Jesus spent his life touching people who were blind, lame, deaf, bleeding, dead, lost, sinful, alone, and sick, and by that touch, they became whole and were restored to the human family. We are a broken people who shall reach out and touch and be touched by love broken for us. It is the miracle of the Eucharist, the Body of Christ. This miracle is as much about what we are becoming here as it is about bread becoming body and wine becoming blood. The Real Presence then is not simply here in a tabernacle if we are truly becoming………….

May 18, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Exodus 34: 4-6, 8-9 + Daniel 2: 52-55 + 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13 + John 3: 16-18

Last week I drove to Tulsa to give a talk, and Brian, a seminary student from the parish went along to do some driving since I wanted to come back late in the evening after the talk. It was a nice ride and conversation, and I questioned him about what he learning and studying in school. Since it is nearly five decades since I was at that level of education, I had some curiosity. To my surprise, things have changed, but at the same time, not much!

A contemporary of mine was recently reflecting on our theological studies which Brian will soon begin, and I was wondering earlier this week what that part of his education will be like as I tried desperately to remember what I learned in the seminary about the Holy Trinity. I remember all the things that don’t help. I remember that that class met at 7:30 am. It was dark most of the year at that hour. Try to imagine a room full of 22-year-olds sitting together at that hour through a lecture on the Holy Trinity. Courage was not the least of that professor’s gifts. I remember how bored I was or how boring the professor was, I’m not sure which was the cause; but I can you this much, at the risk of casing scandal, at age 22 I wasn’t very interested. The treatise on the Trinity was the Rubik’s cube of theology, summarized this way (I actually still have my notes): four relations, three Persons, two processions, one God, and no proof; and I would add, little relevance to my spiritual life at the time.

There is not much information on the Trinity from the Bible, and especially in the readings assigned to this day. John 3:16 is an important text which many Christians, stick on the bumpers, hold up on cards at football games, and quote by memory. I know this since a person who sideswiped my car this past week while talking on a cell phone had John 3:16 on the bumper of their car. I just a few words, John 3:16 sums it all up as far as we are concerned who live in the post-resurrection era remembering and deepening our understanding of what has happened to us because of God’s Love. But it isn’t going to provide much information about the central mystery of Christian Faith.

What these reading do is point to the experience that will lead us into the mystery of the Trinity because the Trinity is not about equations or Metaphysical expressions. It is about love: God-love, Divine Love. The Gospel of John does not present a theology of non-Christian religions but is written both for fence-sitters like Nicodemus (who is being addressed in the third chapter) and for John’s persecuted community. This text is abused when used to condemn nonbelievers. It is a gift of hope for us who are believers; hope that we are loved by a distant God but by one whose Son offered up the very life of God for our sake.

It is love that leads us into the mystery of the Trinity and what it reveals to us about God. We proclaim, we worship, we believe in a God who is love, and because of that love, there is a relationship in which we believe in a God with whom there is trust, confidence, and strangest of all, of affection. Our God acts toward us with affection asking for a response, and the only word describe that response if “love.”

Suddenly then we are not God’s creatures, we are God’s children. We share in God’s life. That means that it is not only God’s nature to know and to love creatively, but also our nature as well. If we are ever to become what we have been created to be, fully what God intended, then we live out our lives in likeness to God. We must become a true community, in which each member both creates and is created by the others, a community in which each member sees in others the perfection of God, so perfectly reflected that love is the only possible bond.

The more this revelation sinks into our hearts and our minds and our souls, the more powerfully the Spirit will have filled us, and the more we shall be led into the light in profound unity and reconciliation.

Yesterday afternoon I held the son of young woman I have known since she was about 12 years old. Her husband was standing behind her. I looked into the eyes of that 8-month-old beautiful child, and I said, he has his father’s eyes. When we find ourselves looking into each other’s eyes and able to see the eyes of God and see with the eyes of God, we shall have entered into the mystery of the Trinity; the mystery of God’s love which is not a closed circle. It has been broken open by the Incarnation in order to draw us into a new creation in which we shall have eternal life.

This is what we believe: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

May 11, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Acts 2: 1-11 + Psalm 104 + 1 Corinthians 12: 3-7, 12-14 + John 20: 19-23

There always seems to be some level of fascination with the images and details that Luke provides in Acts of the Apostles and the story of what happened that day in Jerusalem. Any discussion about this event and the Holy Spirit inevitably begins to address the detail that describes the communication – the speaking in tongues that occurred and brought so many to the point of conversion that day.

While it is only natural to be fascinated by the curious, it gets us no where near understanding and experiencing the Holy Spirit to think that somehow the Spirit’s presence is confirmed by the ability of people to speak foreign languages. To sit and wonder: “How did they do that?” is to my mind a little off the mark. Scholars seem to be of the opinion that Luke is indicating some miraculous event, but I am not convinced that the miracle is simply found with the apostles suddenly able to speak several languages. In itself the ability to suddenly be able to speak a different language could only cause admiration or fascination. This miracle caused more than that.

The miracle here is not only about the Apostles. There was a miracle; but it was as much a miracle of hearing as it was of speaking, and that makes a difference. Had the crowd not heard; had they not understood; the speaking miracle would have simply been something odd and curious. This manifestation of the Holy Spirit then, it seems to me, is not found in something the apostles did, or simply in something that happened to them; but also and more so in a change that happened in the hearts and the minds of those who heard those apostles. The shift from curiosity on their part to faith is the work of the Holy Spirit. As with all of the miracles though, the exact nature of it is less important than the meaning. “How did they do that?” is a silly question if you never ask: “What does it mean?”

At the point of asking the real question, we are face to face with the meaning of the Spirit’s presence. It has more to do with understanding than with speaking in tongues. I don’t think we should view Pentecost as a magical event. To keep us from doing so, the church puts before us today two stories of the Spirit’s coming: one with a mighty wind, the other with a gentle breath. There are times when we experience the Spirit in sudden and surprising ways that may change our lives in a moment; but more often the Spirit is that quiet breath that gradually and eventually leads us to understand because we’ve been listening.

Most of our lives are spent struggling to find and discern where and what God is calling us toward. Many of us are not so much burning with the Holy Spirit, but burn-out by the demands of our times. Like disciples locked in rooms of fear or depression we cannot imagine that we might ever live differently. Or we are like the crowds running from one thrill to the next hardly ever stopping long enough to listen, to hear what God might be saying to us or calling us to become.

The miracle of Pentecost is not found in wind or tongues. It is found in lives set free from fear and in people who can hear God’s call and because of that call think outside the self-imposed limits we place on ourselves. These are people who do things, think things, and dream things greater than they have known in the past. These Spirit-filled ones become the church, the people of God rather than people of this world. These are people who are wise and see the world as God sees it. They know their opinion is not necessarily the best angle on the whole truth. This wisdom is not always practical, but it is possible. These people have understanding. They are turned upside down, so they see the world as God sees it. These are people free of confusion and dissension because they can stand under others thinking what they think and feeling what they feel.

These are people of knowledge free of ignorance and narrow mindedness.

They have the gift of counsel. They do not suffer the loneliness of personal decisions. They give comfort, hope, and direction to others. They have holy and wholesome advice. The Spirit filled are steadfast and consistent. With this gift of fortitude, they choose the good no matter what. These people, filled with wonder are pushed to be more like God who continually amazes us.

This day, Pentecost reminds us of the power and possibilities of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our world. It allows to go far beyond what human beings can do on their own. The Spirit has been given we proclaim today. That Spirit works wonders wherever human hearts are open to its movement. The earth is renewed each time rivalries are resolved; distinctions are recognized as merely expressions of diversity; peace is restored; comfort and solace are offered, forgiveness is granted. We are full of that Spirit. When we open ourselves to that Spirit, it will be like the opening of the doors of that upper room. We will never be the same.

April 27, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Acts 17: 22-31 + Psalm 66 + 1 Peter 3: 13:22 + John 14:15-21

The point here is not: “Jesus is going to God and when they die, the disciples will go to God and be reunited to him.” The point here is: once he has died as is no longer physically present among them, he will not be gone. He will be present to them in and through the Spirit in the depth of their own beings. They are not being encouraged to hope for life after death. They are being instructed and led into a consciousness change, a serious, important, life-giving, hope giving change that will lead them to become aware of spiritual presence without physical manifestation. It that sounds goofy to you or sounds like proposing a séance, then good, because if it leads you think more deeply, question more profoundly, and desire more passionately, then you are beginning to think outside of this world; and that is a good thing. We must not be content with or settle down this world. In the larger context of this Chapter, Jesus is at prayer with the Father about taking us out of this world. This world does not think about nor conceive of the Spirit. Our difficulty is that we are “of this world”, and Jesus says that this world does not know of the reality of the Spirit.

This world is alienated from the spiritual partially because it is addicted to the sense knowledge. When the physical sights and sounds of people are not present to us, we assume, as “worldly beings,” they are gone. Jesus would have us question that assumption. That was the problem revealed in the story of Thomas the Apostle. He only wanted knowledge that came from touching. When you begin to step out of this world, you begin to understand that while death might separate us from loved ones, in another and more ultimate sense it deepens our spiritual union with them.

When we try to ponder this, our minds block because we get stuck in this world, and too much of our time, our consciousness, and our energy is spent on this world. When we stop long enough to get the bigger picture, a life time in this world is not much compared to eternity, and this is the point at which we find the disciples. They right at the turning point, the change point when they are being invited to experience the world of the Spirit instead of a brief brush with the world of the flesh (to use Paul’s language) they hesitate, and Jesus steps in to call them onward. There is a wonderful piece of wisdom in a 1998 movie: “Hope Floats”. Dumped on a TV talk show by her husband of several years, Birdee Pruitt, returned to her hometown along with her daughter Berniece. Only with difficulty did she adjust to a new life without her husband and to a life again under her mother’s roof, among friends and acquaintances in the town of Smithville, Texas. Eventually, peace and acceptance and then new love come into her life. One day after the death of her mother, she passes on a bit of wisdom she learned from her mother to her daughter, Berniece. “Momma says that beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts the most. Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up. And it will.

The disciples are in the middle in John 14, and so are we. This is the “hope time”, and it is sustained and realized by our ability to experience the Spirit, by our connection to or our “Communion” with a presence that is not of this world. Our breakthrough can come when we understand how this Spirit works and how this spirit is expressed and experienced. What Jesus instructs in Chapter 14 of John’s Gospel is that the Spirit, the on going and real presence of Jesus who is still with us is known when His work is continued and his mission is advanced. When we forgive one another, Jesus is here. When the hungry are fed one at a time or by the thousands, Jesus is here. When those passed by on the road of life area picked up and provided for, Jesus is here. When we do things, we never thought we could, Jesus is here. We simply need to remember these things, to believe His Word, to act on his command.

There are two unmistakable signs of the Spirit’s presence. The Spirit calls us to the Church. If any thing we do, or any choice we make leads us away from communion, leads us to interact with fewer and fewer of God’s people in worship, in learning, in sacraments then it is a bad choice and ultimately blocks the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit calls us to wholeness, to integrity, to Joy. To put it simply, if our lives are empty and we feel that something is missing, then something is. The life of grace is not always a life of pleasure and comfort, simply because real love is always about sacrifice. But when followed honestly and faithfully, it will feel right because it is. These are middle days for us. We are Easter People living with Hope. “It is not good for man to be alone.” says the author of Genesis. But these are good days, so we must not be alone.

April 20, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norma, OK

Acts 6:1-7 + Psalm 33 + 1 Peter 2:4-9 + John 14:1-12

I had an interesting experience early last week.  The person who manages my retirement account wanted to talk. I made and kept an appointment and the conversation focused on my retirement. How much I would need was the big question leading to some serious discussion about what to do with what I have saved as the present economy was calling for some review of the investment and saving plan. “When are you going to retire?” was a question asked. “How about the end of the week? was my response. By the end of the conversation that did not seem like a good plan and so we agreed on some changes in allocations, and I went to lunch. Most of us set goals along the way in our lives, and we spent a fair amount of time making plans to achieve those goals.

It strikes me that many of us spend a fair amount of time planning our future. Parents of young children think about college education and saving for it. Young people save money for buying their first big ticket item: often a car. There is something about the times in which we live that makes thinking about and planning about the future beyond the limits of life as we know it here a little bit old fashioned. The individualism that plagues our lifetime, the materialism and the need for instant gratification which marks this age, and the consumerism that drives our economy with all its uncertainties makes planning and thinking about what happens next once we have run the course of our lives here too much trouble to think about.

A serious study of this section of John’s Gospel in chapter ten brings all of this to mind today as we hear the apostles being forced to think about their future. They are uncomfortable because it is beginning to dawn on them that the future without the immediate companionship of Jesus is going to demand some changes in their lives and their way of thinking, not unlike the times in which we live. Things are going to change on this earth, in this country and in this church. How we face that is something we might learn from Thomas and Philip.

To begin with, fear is not appropriate for those who believe and have set their lives on the Gospel teachings of Jesus Christ. “Have no fear” Jesus says. “I am taking care of you.” But holding to this conviction is not an excuse for failing to plan and change. The disciples are thinking of other things and so they do not get the message. Jesus says he is leaving and going away. This disturbs the disciples. Their relationship is powerful, hopeful, and personal. They think he is going to some place, and they want to know where so they can follow. What unfolds from this discourse is that the focus of their faith and their hope and their lives is not a matter of place but of person. “Show us the way.” says Thomas. “I AM THE WAY” says Jesus.

It is easy to understand their initial confusion since he says: “I am going to prepare a place for you.” However, in the very next breath he says: “I will take you to myself.”

Jesus is the place.

He is going to the Father, he says, and that is where he will lead them and any who will come to him. Philip speaks up, perhaps because he is starting to get the point and he says: “Show us the Father.” and the response of Jesus says: “See me, see the Father.”

Two weeks away from our celebration of Pentecost, we are encouraged by the Church’s readings to think about the future, to look ahead, to plan and prepare. If we believe there is a future, then making plans for it ought to be more important than the plans for our retirement, since that future will last a lot longer. Preparing for their future meant making some big changes for Thomas, Philip, and their companions. We call that conversion, and the experience of the early church tells very plainly how that happened by the power of the Spirit. We too may face our future with the help of that same spirit Perhaps in the days to come anticipating our celebration of that Spirit’s coming we might make a prayer out of the plea of Thomas and of Phillip. “Show us the way.” “Show us the Father.”

Think of this Gospel with this story.

A very wealthy man died and went to heaven. He was met at the Pearly Gates by St Peter and led down golden streets to the residential section to claim his new home. They passed many mansions: huge, splendid, and with great green lawns in front. At the end of the street they stopped in front of a windowless shack built out of old leftover and used plywood panels. The rich man asked St Peter why he was getting this hovel when there were so many beautiful mansions, he could live in. St Peter replied, “I did the best with what you sent us.”

April 13, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Acts 2:42-47 + Psalm 23 + 1 Peter 2:19-25 + John 10:1-10

This Sunday after Easter for many years ha been called: “Vocation Sunday.” It is not difficult to understand why having heard the readings for the day, but in recent years, I have heard people struggle with this opportunity because the reality of bad shepherds is no longer a remote possibility or some bad dream. You know me well enough after five years in this pulpit to know that I am not shy about the truth, make no effort to deny reality, and enjoy a good challenge now and then. On this past Friday, a Cathedral packed with people buried a Good Shepherd, and the night before, the parish church in Enid where he served as best he could in retirement was overflowing with people who recognized what a gift they had received from a faithful and gracious servant. It was not that he did all things well, but that he did them faithfully.

On Friday of this week, I will have been ordained forty years as a priest of the Archdiocese, and even though I have chosen to celebrate that with you in early June when our lives are less hectic with graduations, confirmation, first communions, and weddings, settling the arrangements for that occasion in the past couple of weeks has given me much to remember, to celebrate, and to think about. You will be hearing more about that in a few weeks, but I cannot pass up this chance to think out loud with you about these things in the context of what we have just heard proclaimed to us by lectors and deacon.

It is the end of Peter’s great sermon on Pentecost that we proclaim today. If you’ll remember I made the comment on Easter Sunday that there is little wonder his sermon was so great that day. He did not live long enough to preach on that event for forty years! I wonder if he would have managed to get away with giving the same one forty times!  What amazes me however, is not what he said; but of course, the change that came over him in those forty days between Good Friday and Pentecost. What further amazes me is the response of the people: “Tell us what to do!” They cry out. Wow! have I ever wished that would happen around here!  Since you have not in one voice shouted: “Tell us what to do.” when I finish here each week. I’ve decided on Good Shepherd Sunday to tell you anyway!

Take Jesus Christ seriously. Stop wishing and talking about making a relationship with him first in your life. Do it now, and make it obvious. Bear witness to that relationship by how you use your gifts. If Christ is first in your life, then the first day of the week is His and there is no other place to be than in his presence among people who worship, praise, give thanks, and accept the gift of his forgiveness and his body and blood. If Christ is first in you life, your check book ought to show that. That’s nothing to be ashamed of nor is it a secret. What you have comes from God. What you give in direct proportion to what you believe. There are people who don’t like to hear that, but it’s the truth. It is a way of imitating the generosity of God. We do it with time, with our talent, and our treasure: all three, not one or the other.

Young people, if you want Jesus Christ to be first in our life, then make it so. What Jesus would do in every situation is what matters first, not what someone else will think of you, or what everyone else is doing, unless that “everyone else” happens to be your church companions. If you have not yet decided what to do with your life, why don’t you ask what God wants you to do with your life, since God gave it to you. It is not a matter of making a lot of money, of looking good, and having everything you want. It is matter of being all that you can be, not having all you can have. I do not believe that we need to pray for vocations, or ask God to call people to generous lives of service. That’s silly and thoughtless. God has never stopped calling us by name. People have stopped listening to God, and they have not taken the courage to respond to the deepest movements in their souls.

In this parish three young people have gone to the seminary in the five years I have been here. One left after giving it a real try and have two stayed. Praise God for all three of them. They had courage. Their example raises questions. There are hundreds of young single people in this parish community. Where are they? Parents, have you left them at home when you promised to bring them up in the practice of the faith? Has the truth that there have been a few bad shepherds so spoiled the thought of generous and faithful commitment that there are only three in five years out of this huge parish? Is this culture so saturated with sex that a celibate life looks lonely and impossible empty and loveless? Has materialism and consumerism so seduced our children that we are left with an overworked, aged clergy and that continual prospect of closed churches? The fact of the matter is, we are as a church struggling with sexism, the limitations our tradition places upon us, and the painful effort of considering change while remaining faithful to the Holy Spirit. In the midst of all that, I do not believe that God has gone silent. I do believe we fail to listen.

Let me tell you a story, and then you think about it and my greatest hope after forty years of service as priest is that you will ask God: “What shall we do?”

A man and his wife came home from a short trip, and they noticed a message on their answering machine. The caller ID was from Alaska. This fact didn’t excite them because it usually meant contact with the man’s long-lost brother who called himself a prospector. Differences of opinion had created a separation between the two for years. As far as the family was concerned, the “prospector” would never amount to anything and they grew tired of him chasing unrealistic dreams with their money. They listened as a stranger’s voice on the message said that the brother had died and someone from the family needed to come make arrangements. Reluctantly, the man and his wife loaded up the car and headed north. After seeing to a funeral, they went to a small, remote cabin to claim any of the brother’s valuables before they left or the goods would be quickly claimed by someone else. Arriving at the run-down shack, they looked through the cupboards and chest of drawers, and packed up a few things they decided they should take with them. As they were leaving, they met rag-tag prospector walking up to the cabin. “You folks leaving?” he asked. They told him yes. “Well, did you clean out Artie’s place?” “We took what we felt was worth taking and we’re heading back.” The old man asked if they minded if he took what was left, and they replied, “No, help yourself.” The old man ambled up to the cabin, turned around and watched the dust roll out from under the car as it headed back to civilization. He went inside, moved a table to one side, picked up a board from the floor, and collected the bags of gold his friend had been gathering for years. “Too bad they didn’t know Artie a little better,” he said to himself.

March 30, 2008 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Acts 2: 42-27 + Psalm 118 + 1 Peter 1:3-9 + John 20: 19-31

Every year on the Sunday after Easter we tell this story. If I asked you to quote Thomas the Apostle, I would bet the debt of this church that all but a handful of you would only be able to say: “My Lord and my God” or “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in his side, I will not believe.  If that was all Thomas had to teach us, the lesson would be simple: “Be careful what you ask for.” This is also the Apostle who said: “Lord, we do not know where you are going.” And even more courageously when Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem, Thomas said to his apostolic companions: “Let us go with him and die with him.” No one ever remembers his moment of courage, but his moment of doubt is unforgettable. We all know what it’s like – you do fifty things well, make one mistake, and that’s all people can talk about. Why is that? Some trick to deflect attention from ourselves? I suspect so. How interesting it is for a less than perfect human church to tell the story of a doubting apostle. But the story is told year after year, and I believe it is so because there is something important for Thomas to teach us.

First, Thomas teaches us that faith does not exclude doubt and questions, nor does it exclude moments when we wonder whether God is truly with us and faithful to God’s promises. Our experience in life leaves us very aware that God can seem distant and unresponsive. Illness strikes, a job is lost, a home burns, a loved one dies and we wonder where God has gone. Real Faith is never clear and unchallenged. Faith may lead to certitude, but not always a comfortable certitude of logic and proof. Most of the time, it is the certitude of one who trusts, not one who knows.

Second, Thomas teaches us that we receive faith in and through the community of parents, friends, and church. It is not a private matter. Thomas found faith because he returned to the community and trusted enough to show up the following Sunday. Ultimately, he testifies to the facet that our faith must be rooted in our own experience of God, in a personal acceptance of God and commitment to God. We cannot simply believe because someone else believes. Our faith must be founded in our own deepest convictions.

Third Thomas teaches us that faith is not simply an assent to doctrines and propositions. Thomas had no creed to accept. In fact, the apostle Thomas did not know the Apostles’ Creed. He had no idea that Jesus had two natures united hypostatically in one person. He had not figured out that there were three persons in one God. He was totally unaware that 10 days earlier, at Jesus last supper, the bread and wine had been changed into the body and blood of Christ. Thomas would have flunked a quiz on first grade catechism. Yet he shows us that, while it is necessary to “believe that” certain doctrines are true, we must first “Believe in” God, the God revealed in Jesus. Thomas’ faith was a personal response, a graced surrender to the risen Jesus as his lord and savior and an acknowledgement that Jesus spoke the truth when he said, “I have the power to lay down my life and take it up again.” As John sees it in his Gospel, faith for Thomas was an expression of loyalty, faithfulness and allegiance to Jesus. It was a radical act of trust and a personal commitment to Jesus and Jesus’ invitation to new life. Thomas teaches us that, in the end, we believe because we know we are loved. We believe in the one who loves us.

The Gospel story does not tell us whether Thomas put his fingers in the wounds of Jesus or touched his side, but he did meet Jesus face to face. That is how he heard the call to faith and where he found the strength to believe and live out that faith as an apostle and martyr. We are invited to meet the Lord face to face in work, sacrament, in community and in the poor and the needy. Christ is always in our minds inviting us to touch him and believe.

I think the church puts this Gospel before us every year to encourage and suggest that the risen Christ is still with us, and those troubled by doubts belong here. Thomas the Teacher suggests that they might only ask, and then look. Touching may not be important, but looking and seeing with love is the beginning of that faith we all admire and desire.