November 28, 2010 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Isaiah 2: 1-5 + Psalm 122 + Romans 13: 11-14 + Matthew 24: 37-44

Long ago I lost count of the times when I have said these words. Those of you who belong to this parish and practice your faith consistently have heard these words often enough to know them as well. The words come from the Rite of Baptism and they go like this:

As Christ was anointed priest, prophet, and king, so may you always live as a member of His body sharing in everlasting life.

“So may you always live” it says, and every time I speak those words for the Church, I wonder when it will begin to happen.

This season beginning today is rooted in prophecy, and it is Isaiah who speaks to us week after week through this season. The Book of Isaiah spans a great length of history. It is the work of many hands, and themes rise up from its pages that reflect times more disturbing and unsettled than our own. From the terrorists of Assyria who wrecked havoc on Jerusalem no less than terrorists have wrecked havoc on us, to a painful and lonely exile in Babylon followed by a broken and fragmented return to Zion, Isaiah stirs visions of hope for a people barely faithful enough to listen; barely able to look ahead because they have looked back for so long; barely able to look outward because they have looked inward and looked only to themselves.

Isaiah writes to a people submerged in a culture of fear, and we are that people. A politic of fear has frightened and divided us. A new rhetoric of fear scares us into ideologies that offer us nothing but more of the same. We are living through a pandemic of depression just like Israel lived depressed and hopeless, for hope is the first thing lost by the depressed. People in sorrow and depression suffer from a sense of hopelessness and an impoverished imagination. They simply cannot imagine a world different from the one in which they are locked.

Into this hopelessness comes the church bearing the message and living the life of Christ who was above all and always is the prophet: the one who stirs dreams and excites the human imagination with thoughts, and ideas, and hopes of the Kingdom of God. We Christians are a prophetic people who can dream of new, and perhaps unheard of paths toward peace and reconciliation. Prophetic people do not sit back and sink into depression and helplessness. They do not whine and blame others for the plight of this world. Prophetic people live through these days and on this earth in one great life/season of Advent. They live with the constant hope and expectation that things will be better, that people will live in peace, that there will be forgiveness and reconciliation, that lions can lie down with lambs, that swords can make plows with which we can feed the hungry who do not have to live in poverty all the days of their lives.

This is Advent. It is the season of hope and of imagination. It is the season that leads us to look upon a baby and imagine the King of Glory. It is the season that invites us to look at shepherds and kings, and see more than rags and riches. It is a season that suggests that we might look up, look at stars, look for angels, and find the meaning of it all in a promise made to Abraham and Sarah.

We will not find hope in video screens, games, and the anonymity of chat rooms. These will not so much stir our hope and bring to life our imagination as they will dull and desensitize us into a deeper and more deadly stupor that leaves us lonely and empty and sad. Our hope comes from remembering the promises made to us by God and repeated to us by the prophets. But the prophets for our day are not celebrity singers, models, and athletes. The prophets for our day are sitting in this church. They are people of faith, born in Baptism, anointed with the Holy Spirit who can see the unmistakable signs of the presence and action of God. They are willing to think and act as though there is something more for us than to simply become bigger consumers who dream in this season about having the latest gadget, toy, or pleasure. Our dreams must not be about what is in those packages already sitting under trees in living rooms. Our dreams must be about what God has begun to do in this world and what God has been asking of us for a long time.

Prophetic people, wake up! On the day of your baptism, some priest or deacon announced how you were to live. This is the season to recapture our imagination both collectively as a church and individually as God’s chosen ones. As a church we can imagine peace, respect, dignity, forgiveness, acceptance, and love. Once we begin to imagine it, we can find a way to make it happen. As people we can imagine being pure, holy, faithful. We can imagine reconciling and forgiving. We can imagine using our time, our lives, gifts, our resources, without asking what we might get out of it, but excited and thrilled to think what God might get out of it.

In the midst of struggle and doubt, Isaiah did just that, and he brought joy when there was no earthly reason to have it. He brought hope when there was no way to imagine anything except more of the same misery and helplessness. He brought light into the darkest of times, not with some Pollyanna silliness, but with the truth of God’s Word and God’s promises fulfilled. It is Advent again, my friends. It is time to image what we can do with what God has given us and taught us in Christ His son. It is time to make real what began in our Baptism. It is time for prophets to rise, to live, to lift this world from its sorry self-serving depression. If we can take common bread and wine and feed our very souls, we can take our own flesh and blood and feed this world hungry for gentleness and peace. There is a better story to tell than the stories we hear night after night on the evening news. There is the story of woman who said yes when she had every reason to say no. There is the story of man who had every reason and right to walk away from the woman who was to be his bride yet did not. They had enough imagination to allow the possibility that God could make something of their mess and confusion and God did. Imagine that.

November 2, 2010 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 25: 6, 7-9 + 2 Corinthians 5: 1, 6-10 + John 6: 37-40

Twice today, I walked out of my office and stood in the hall unable to remember what it was I needed. It happens to me all the time, and I hope I am not the only one who has this experience. We forget things, and sometimes it is not by choice.
There are other times when we can choose forget things or choose to remember. This is day and this evening is about choosing to remember. It is an opportunity, not an obligation: an opportunity to strengthen the bonds of the human spirit because as a church we are about remembering.

Yet the age in which we live is all about forgetting and about anonymity. This is an age when human persons who reflect the life and light of God are dehumanized and depersonalized by the deliberate forgetfulness of governments, institutions, and individuals. This is what allows us to wage war, to push buttons from afar that destroy human life because we can’t see them, and then we can forget because we failed to remember that they were there to begin with. Forgetfulness does nothing for life, and has no place among the faithful. The very notion of faithfulness contradicts the notion of forgetfulness.

Our God is one who remembers, who remembers promises made, who remembers those who have known the fear and loneliness of oppression, powerlessness, and the treatment of those who would rob them of the dignity, identity, and their very soul. Once without soul, it is easy to make people expendable: to think of them as collateral damage. It is an all too common experience in human history but it is not one Christians live with.

Remembering is one of the great commands that Jesus speaks to us. It is when we forget that we fall into sin.
It is when we forget that we break the bond of communion.
It is when we forget that we lose our way.

It is when we forget that we repeat mistakes
It is when we forget that war comes again on the face of the earth.
It is when we forget that we stumble.
It is when we forget that we fail to see the life of God in those beside us.

These last three days: Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls form a triduum of feasts about the dead. As Christians, we choose to remember like our God. We choose to revere and honor our dead, for they are not far from us. When we remember the death of the Lord until he comes again in glory, we are one with them all who await his return in glory.

We stand in a tradition that proclaims life, not death; honor and respect, not disposable life. In our tradition every life, born, unborn, dead, or alive has value and eternal significance. No one is expendable. Today we treasure our memory, our photos, mementos, medals, rings, and watches, the smiles and hugs and tears and all the love we have known from those who have died. We are with them in faith; we are in communion with them at this table for we believe in the communion of saints. All heaven and all earth bears witness to it. What we do today, we do in His memory and in memory of them all.

So today, All Souls Day, is about our memory and our will to remember what has been done for us, what has been given to us, and what has been asked of us We share life with all who have gone before us, and remember them because they still live with us, in us, and all around us.

November 1, 2010 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

About five days ago, I received an email from someone in another parish where I had served. I was not surprised because Janie sends an email on or near All Saints Day every year, and she has done so every year since the mid 70s. She says, as she does every year, that she can never celebrate All Saints every year without the memory of a question I asked the children at Mass what you had to do to become a saint. Now, I’ve learned since then never to ask a rhetorical question in a homily especially with children present unless you want someone to answer. I learned quickly not to do that. As soon as my mouth was closed, up went a hand and without any acknowledgement from me, a little voice said quite loudly: “You have to be dead!” I should have sat down right then and there. I have learned a lot since then, and you notice that there are no children around this altar today. I have also learned a lot about the Word of God.

What I am going to do today without asking any questions is invite you to discover something that I have grown more and more aware of as I live in the presence of God. It is this: you do not have to be dead to be a saint. The kid had it wrong. What you can do to grow in holiness and grow more saintly is to live these Beatitudes that Matthew leaves us in this fifth chapter. There in just twelve verses is the whole plan of sanctity, and nowhere in the whole list is, “Blessed are the dead.”

Poor in Spirit are the holy. These are the ones not possessed by their possessions. Their hearts and their lives are free to give, to serve, and care for others. They put their trust in God knowing that things mean nothing and God means everything. Loving and committed are the holy. Only people who have loved can mourn. While mourning is not something we seek, it is a sign that we have loved and that something has been taken or is lost. This mourning while not a good thing is a sign of that loving commitment. People who have never loved who have never found themselves in a loving relationship, they know nothing of mourning. They just drift from one shallow relationship to another. While it is right to be detached from things, it is not right to be detached from people.

Meek and Holy are the Saints. These are people who bless our lives with kindness, compassion and patience. The Meek are filled with respect for themselves and others. Righteous are the holy they are good and good to around. They judge no one but themselves. They find goodness in everyone. Merciful are the holy. They understand others and they know what pain and suffering is like because they live for others not just for themselves. They are born in the image of a God who is merciful and in their presence we know a merciful God. The holy are clean of heart. They mean what they say, and they say what they mean. What you see is what you get. There are no hidden motives in people like these. They are just clean of heart. And, Saints make peace. They are never trouble makers. They are peace makers, and the world is better because they are here. They live without bitterness.

You see, it’s all there, simple, clear and direct. Your vocation to becoming a saint is right there in the twelfth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. It’s the way to holiness, and when we live it there will be joy and gladness. All Saints Day will be our day, and you know what? You won’t have to be dead.