PROPER 17, YEAR C

August 28, 2016

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Luke 14:1, 7-14

 

Down through the centuries, the Church has read today’s Gospel as a lesson in humility: one of the principal Christian virtues.

 

At dinner in the house of a leading Pharisee, Jesus observes the guests jockeying for position, trying as they arrive to snatch up the best seats. Most likely he discerns in this behavior the symptoms of a deeper spiritual malaise: namely, pride, ambition, and the striving for honor and recognition.

 

So, he admonishes the guests with a bit of proverbial wisdom. When you’re invited to a marriage feast, don’t sit down in the place of honor—because when someone more important than you arrives, the host may ask you to relinquish your seat, and you’ll suffer the public embarrassment of being sent down to the least desirable location in the room. Instead, take the lowest place first, so that your host has the opportunity to honor you with an invitation to come up higher.

 

Our Lord is not really offering this advice merely as a tip on successful social climbing, but rather as an illustration of a broader principle. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, but those who humble themselves will be exalted.

 

To expand the point: those who try to grab the best seat first are assuming a posture of entitlement and engaging in an effort to take what they believe to be their rightful due. But the person who takes the lowest seat first is assuming a posture of humility and openness, so that they’ll accept any invitation to “go up higher” not as a right but as a gracious gift freely given.

 

Over the years, moreover, my observation has been that people who assume this posture of humility and receptivity are, by and large, fundamentally happier and more content than people who assume a posture of entitlement.

 

One of my priestly mentors, the Rev. Dr. Richard Cornish Martin, wrote a short memoir, entitled Called, before he died about seven years ago. In this short book, he observed that in all his years of priestly ministry he’d never really actively sought any of his church assignments. Instead, it all seemed a series of coincidences of being in the right place at the right time and receiving the invitation of a vestry or bishop to come and take this or that position. Very little of it was planned; it all just unfolded according to its own logic, and he accepted the opportunities and challenges that came his way with deep gratitude and indeed a sense of profound unworthiness.

 

Not all of us can live that way all the time; and if I’m honest I cannot say that I’ve always approached my own priestly vocation in exactly that way myself. But one observation that I can make from my experience is that by far the most fulfilling tasks, assignments, and responsibilities that have come my way have not been those that I sought out, but rather the ones that sought me out. 

 

For example, I never imagined that I would serve on a diocesan Search and Nominations committee for the election of a bishop, so that was never an assignment that I desired or sought. And then one day, about eleven years ago, the Chair of the Diocese of Rhode Island Standing Committee called on me in my office, said they needed me, and asked would I accept the appointment? With some trepidation I said yes. I didn’t know quite what to expect, but it turned out to be one of the most interesting, challenging, and rewarding assignments ever.

 

Conversely, I’ve noticed over the years that a common denominator among people who are angry or bitter about their life in the Church is often a feeling of resentment that, somehow, they’ve been cheated of their rightful due. 

 

For example: the vestry member who resigns in a huff and stops coming to church because he thinks that his ideas and proposals for how to make the parish grow haven’t been listened to and taken seriously. Or: the volunteer in parish organizations who goes to the grave full of bitterness and resentment because she thinks all her years of hard work for the church have never received the proper acknowledgment and gratitude. (Right from the beginning of my thirty years in ordained ministry,  I’ve encountered multiple examples of both types, so I’m not talking about anyone in particular here at Christ Church! But every parish has them!) 

 

In cases like these, the people involved are only making themselves miserable—just like the guests who arrive at the wedding feast and grab the best seats, setting themselves up for a legacy of bitterness and resentment when they’re sent down to the lowest place. Once again, our Lord’s point is that those who simply receive with gratitude whatever blessings come their way, end up being much happier and more content with their lot in life.

 

And what’s at stake is not merely this life but the next as well. Our Lord then introduces what I like to call the eschatological dimension. (Eschatological is one of my favorite theological words; it means having to do with the Last Things or End Times.) When you give a dinner or a banquet, our Lord says, don’t invite your friends, relations, and others who can return the favor and repay you in this life; rather, invite the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the lame—and you will be blessed, precisely because they cannot repay you. You’ll be repaid at the Resurrection on the last day.

 

So, again, Our Lord isn’t just giving advice on how to give good dinner parties but enunciating a wider principle of crucial importance. Sometimes, we just have to do what we believe to be right, even though we may not be rewarded or recognized for it in this life. On the contrary, doing the right thing may even attract criticism and make us unpopular. But God sees our actions and our motives. And our final reward, the reward that really matters, comes not in this life or in this world. In that knowledge, then, we go forward, fulfilling what we believe to be our duty in each situation that confronts us, and—most importantly of all—doing so with the unfailing good cheer that testifies to the vibrancy of our faith.

 

PROPER 16, YEAR C

Sunday, August 22, 2004

Christ Church, Woodbury, N.J.

 

Luke 13:22-30

 

One of the worst things that can be said about any church, parish, or congregation today is, “They preach hellfire and damnation.” Many people give that as the reason why they left a particular church. As one old gentleman used to say in the church I attended in London: I don’t want the fear of God but the love of God. No clergy person I’ve ever met wants the reputation of being a fire and brimstone preacher. Nor do I, let me hasten to add.

 

The problem is that large sections of the Bible do talk about hellfire and damnation. Much of what our Lord himself says in the Gospels could be described as fire and brimstone preaching. So, to be true to scripture, we can’t afford to ignore the parts like the Gospel reading we’ve just heard. But what are we to make of such descriptions of people weeping and gnashing their teeth as they’re shut out of the kingdom of God?

 

Before we look further at this reading, it might be helpful to take note of our options when it comes to beliefs about heaven and hell. What happens to us after we die?

 

A very popular position today is universalism, the belief that everyone’s going to heaven, no matter what. Salvation is universal. God loves us too much to give up on us—either in this life or in the next. God created us with the intention that we should live with him forever, and God’s will always prevails in the end.

 

Universalism is enormously attractive, until we notice some of its problems. For one thing, it denies us our freedom to say “no” to God. And when we don’t have the freedom to say “no,” then saying “yes” doesn’t mean very much either. If universalism is true, then nothing we do in this life matters very much, because we’re all going to the same place anyway. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re Hitler or Mother Theresa. Our decisions and actions here and now have no real consequences for what happens to us hereafter. And, to me, that position cheapens the value and dignity of this precious earthly life that’s been entrusted to us.

 

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s atheism, which denies the existence either of God or of any afterlife. When we die, our life, our selfhood, our consciousness, is simply extinguished, and there’s nothing more. For many people today, that seems the most plausible way of thinking. As Christians, of course, we reject it. But notice that atheism and universalism have one thing in common. Both imply that our decisions in this life have no consequences beyond this life. We all end up in the same place, regardless. And again, to me, that suggestion trivializes the dignity of human freedom and makes this life little more than an inconsequential game.

 

Between these two extremes, Catholic Christianity teaches that our decisions, beliefs, and actions in this life do have eternal consequences. Such is our God-given dignity as persons created in his image. Contrary to atheism, God does exist, he’s created us to live with him forever, and in Christ he offers us eternal life. But, contrary to universalism, God gives us the freedom to decide whether to accept his invitation. He won’t force us into his Kingdom if we don’t want to enter. And all our values, beliefs, decisions, and actions in this life add up to a basic choice – what theologians call our “fundamental option” – for or against God and the life he offers us.

 

Now, with those options in mind, let’s look again at today’s Gospel. As Jesus is journeying towards Jerusalem, someone asks him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” A bit of background will help us understand the significance of this question. At that time there was a popular saying: “all Israelites have a share in the world to come.” And another saying: “God has made this world for the many, but the world to come for the few.” In other words, this world belongs to the Gentiles, but the world to come belongs to Israel. So, the question, “Lord will those who are saved be few?” really means, “Lord, isn’t salvation just for us Jews?”

 

Our Lord’s answer takes three parts. First: “Strive to enter by the narrow door.” In other words, don’t take your own salvation for granted just because you belong to the Chosen People. Before you worry about the Gentiles, be concerned for yourselves. And this teaching applies equally to us today. Quite a few Christians seem to spend a lot of time worrying about whether others are going to heaven, when the souls they really need to be concerned about most are their own. So, we need to beware of the attitude summed up in Brendan Behan’s wonderful line, “The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling for you but not for me!”

 

Second, there does come a point when the door is shut and those who then decide that they want to get in can’t. That’s a hard teaching. But life is like that, full of cutoff points. If you don’t meet the application deadline, you don’t get into college. If you don’t make your reservation in time, you don’t get a seat on the plane. God is incredibly merciful and patient. Throughout our lives, he gives us opportunity after opportunity, second chance after second chance. But sooner or later there comes a point when we’ve used up all those opportunities and second chances. When we die, the narrow door is shut, and we find ourselves either inside or outside.

 

But third, to the question, “Will those who are saved be few?” our Lord effectively answers: No, they’ll be many. They’ll come from east and west, and north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God: Jews and Gentiles together. But those who are so presumptuous as to think that they have exclusive entry rights will be the ones who find themselves shut out, while those whom they expected to see shut out will be the ones who get in. The first will be last and the last will be first. If our Lord teaches us anything in the Gospels, it’s that when we get to heaven—if we get to heaven—many of those we see there will be the very last people we expected to see there, while many of those whom we expected to see there will be oddly absent. 

 

So, there’s a sense in which universalism is true. The good news is that God offers his salvation to us all universally, without distinction. All nations, races, classes, tribes, and tongues will be represented the heavenly banquet. Everyone’s invited, without exception. The only question that need concern us is whether we’ll be there too. We shall all spend the rest of our lives answering that question, one way or the other. All we need to do is to accept God’s offer of salvation – and then live as though our lives depended on it.

 

ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Monday, August 15, 2022

S. Clement’s, Philadelphia

 

One of Our Lady’s titles in the Litany of Loreto, the Western Church’s only officially approved Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is “Ark of the Covenant.” So, this evening I want to reflect on what it means to describe Mary as a new Ark of the Covenant, and to explore how that image illuminates the mystery of her bodily Assumption into heaven at the conclusion of her earthly life.

 

We begin with the Ark of the Covenant itself. And please bear with me. We will get to the Assumption, but first we need to go over some indispensable Old Testament background.

 

We recall that after the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt, Moses ascends Mount Sinai to receive God’s law for his people. In addition to the Ten Commandments and all the other precepts of the Torah, God gives instructions for the construction of a kind of portable Temple, known as the Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting. 

 

And the first item of sacred furniture to be fashioned and placed in the Tabernacle is the Ark of the Covenant: a sacred box or chest made of acacia wood and covered with pure gold. (Acacia wood, incidentally, was known in the ancient world for being extremely durable.) Inside the Ark are to be placed the two tablets of the Law Moses brought down from Mount Sinai, a golden bowl of manna—the miraculous bread from heaven that God provides for his people in the wilderness—and the rod or staff of the high priest Aaron.

 

The Ark is so holy that it cannot be touched directly, so it must be carried about on two poles, similarly made of acacia wood and covered with gold, that fit into golden rings attached to its four corners. Finally, two golden statues of cherubim—that is, angels—are placed on top of the Ark’s lid, known as the mercy-seat.

 

When Moses places the completed Ark in the Tent of Meeting, a mysterious cloud descends, the glory of the Lord fills the Tabernacle, and God speaks with Moses. For this reason, the Ark and the Tabernacle together become recognized as God’s dwelling place on earth. During their forty years’ journey through the wilderness, the Israelites carry the Ark ahead of them; and wherever they make camp, they set up the Tent of Meeting with the Ark inside it so that Moses can confer with God.

Now, fast forward about three or four centuries. The Israelites are settled in the Promised Land. The young King David decides to bring the Ark up to his capital city of Jerusalem and there give it a permanent home in a proper Temple rather than in a portable Tent. But instead of carrying the Ark on the golden poles, the Israelites place it on a cart drawn by oxen. At a bump in the road, the oxen stumble, and when an unfortunate individual named Uzzah puts out his hand to steady the Ark, he’s struck dead on the spot. Filled with fear, David cries out, “How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?” and he abandons his plan to bring it up to Jerusalem, taking it instead to the house of one Obed-edom the Gittite in the hill country of Judah. There the Ark remains about three months. 

 

But when David sees that far from being struck dead, Obed-edom’s household is blessed by the Ark’s presence, he takes courage and renews his plan to bring the Ark to Jerusalem, this time having it carried properly on the golden poles rather than drawn on an oxcart. And then, as the Ark enters the city to the people’s shouts and the blasts of the ram’s horn, David dances before the Lord with all his might.

 

At length, David’s son King Solomon builds the Temple that finally replaces the Tent of Meeting. Here the Ark resides in the innermost sanctum, the Holy of Holies, another four or five centuries until the Babylonians conquer Jerusalem in 587 BC. At this point the Ark disappears from history, and no-one knows what happened to it, although numerous wild speculations and theories abound to this day. By New Testament times, the Holy of Holies in the rebuilt Temple stands empty. But a widespread belief persists among devout Jews that one of the signs of the Messiah’s imminent arrival will be the Ark’s return to Jerusalem.

 

Now, a number of New Testament scholars suggest that in the opening chapters of his Gospel, Saint Luke takes great pains to depict the Virgin Mary as a new Ark of the Covenant. Putting it that way, of course, gets things completely the wrong way round. The point is not to reduce Mary to the status of an exalted container or vessel. The way biblical typologies work, the earlier reality always anticipates something far greater. So, it’s more accurate to describe the Ark as a foreshadowing, anticipation, or type of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She’s the incomparably greater fulfillment towards which the Ark was symbolically pointing all along.

 

The first clue in this direction comes at the Annunciation in Nazareth, where the Angel Gabriel explains how, even as a virgin, Mary shall conceive the Son of God: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee …” This language of overshadowing directly invokes the Old Testament descriptions of the cloud of divine glory descending upon the Ark and filling the Tent of Meeting.

 

The parallels become even more explicit in the Visitation Gospel that we’ve just heard. Elizabeth’s exclamation, “Whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” directly echoes David’s “How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?” And then the unborn John the Baptist leaping for joy in his mother’s womb recapitulates David dancing before the Lord with all his might. One final detail, not mentioned in today’s Gospel, is that just as the Ark remains at Obed-edom’s house three months, so Mary remains at Elizabeth’s house in the hill country of Judah three months.

 

The early Church Fathers noticed further parallels. The durability of the Ark’s acacia wood anticipates Mary’s bodily incorruptibility. The purity of its gold anticipates Mary’s pure holiness. Just as the Ark is God’s dwelling place on earth in the Old Testament, so Mary becomes the dwelling place of God incarnate in the New. 

Where the Ark contains God’s word carved on two stone tablets, Mary carries in her womb the Word-made-flesh. Where the Ark contains a golden bowl of manna, Mary carries in her womb the true Bread from heaven. And where the Ark contains the rod or staff of Aaron’s priesthood, Mary carries in her womb the one true High Priest whose perfect sacrifice reconciles a fallen world to God. All this rich symbolism conveyed in one little petition from the Litany of Loreto: Ark of the Covenant, pray for us!

 

Finally, at the end of her earthly life, Mary fulfills the typology in an utterly new and dramatic way. The original Ark underwent a long journey from its creation near Mount Sinai to its final resting place in the Jerusalem Temple. But for the Blessed Virgin Mary the parallel journey is from her earthly dwelling (either in Jerusalem or, if you prefer, Ephesus) to her destination in the heavenly Jerusalem. In an eighth century sermon on the Dormition of the Theotokos, Saint John of Damascus writes this:

 

Today, the holy, incomparable virgin enters the heavenly sanctuary that lies above the universe … Today, the holy, living ark of the living God, the one who carried her own maker within herself, comes to her rest in the temple of the Lord not made by hands. David—her ancestor and God’s—leaps for joy; the angels join in the dance.

  

So, we rejoice. We don’t know what happened to the original Ark of the Covenant. But we do know that the true Ark is in heaven. There she prays for us; there she waits to welcome us on the Day of Resurrection. May God grant us grace to be found worthy of sharing the eternal life and glory that Mary already enjoys there in the company of her divine Son and all the angels and saints. Amen.

Acknowledgment: Some key ideas for this sermon came from Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah (New York: Image, 2018), pp. 41-70.

 

Proper 15, Year C

Sunday 14 August 2022

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Jeremiah 23:23-29

Luke 12:49-56

 

If you haven’t already, you’ll probably soon realize that in addition to the appointed Scripture readings, I occasionally like to reflect on the Collect of the Day. Most of these Collects go back to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s first Book of Common Prayer of 1549, and before that to the Latin liturgy of the medieval Western Church. They offer a useful compendium of Anglican theology, wonderfully encapsulated in short, pithy prayers.

 

Today’s Collect makes a dual statement about Jesus Christ, describing him both as a “sacrifice for sin,” and as an “example of holy life.” Here, in that first phrase alone, we have a magnificent combination of two sweeping theological affirmations. Some versions of the Christian faith focus narrowly on the Atonement, emphasizing our Lord’s sacrifice on the cross to the exclusion of all else; others emphasize Christ’s example and teachings while downplaying his sacrifice for sin. But this Collect makes it clear that the right approach isn’t “either/or” but “both/and.” Christ is both a sacrifice for sin and an example of holy life.

 

And who we understand Christ to be has enormous implications for how we live the Christian life. So, the Collect proceeds to ask God that we may have grace both to “receive thankfully that his inestimable benefit”—that is, the forgiveness of our sins through his sacrifice of himself on the Cross—and also “to endeavor ourselves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life.” In other words, the fully Christian life combines both faith and works. God has given his only Son as a sacrifice for sin, to be received by faith, and also as an example of holy life, which we’re called to follow daily in the conduct of our own lives.

 

The difficulty is that before we can place our faith in our Lord’s sacrifice for our sins, we need first to recognize and acknowledge the sins of which we need to be forgiven. That’s the hard part. Two weeks I ago, I spoke of the importance of preachers proclaiming the Good News. And I meant it. But the inconvenient truth is that sometimes before we can even be capable of hearing the Good News, we need first to take on board the bad news. We’re sinners who’ve fallen short of the glory of God. Unless we recognize our need for forgiveness, the Good News is apt to breeze past us as the answer to a question we haven’t asked. So, sometimes the preacher’s task, as the old saying goes, is not only to comfort the afflicted, but also to afflict the comfortable.

 

This imperative is a driving force in today’s Scripture readings. The Prophet Jeremiah castigates the false prophets of his day, who relate their dreams to one another, prophesying the lies and deceits of their own hearts. The reading doesn’t tell us what kinds of dreams these false prophets were reporting, but we can be sure that they were what the listeners wanted to hear. The true prophet, by contrast, speaks the Lord’s Word faithfully: “Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer which breaks the rock in pieces?”

 

Our Lord says something similar in today’s Gospel: “I came to cast fire upon the earth, and would that it were already kindled! … Do you think that I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” There follow some hard sayings about divided households: “They will be divided, father against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against her mother; mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” So much for Christian family values!

 

Most New Testament scholars agree that here Jesus is making it uncompromisingly clear that the requirements of discipleship surpass even the claims of family loyalty. And in the ancient world such a claim was radically new and subversive. For the ancients, no moral obligation could be higher than honoring and obeying one’s parents, and fulfilling one’s familial obligations as husband, wife, father, or mother. But here Jesus is telling us that he’s come to create a new community, a new family, within which loyalty to God and to our brothers and sisters in the faith takes precedence even over obligations to biological family should the two ever come into conflict.

 

And down through the centuries we see this conflict playing itself out in the lives of the countless faithful Christians. Consider Perpetua of Carthage in the third century. Twenty-two years old, a Roman noblewoman and the mother of an infant child, Perpetua was arrested and sentenced to death for being a Christian. Visiting her in prison, her father pleaded with her to respect his old age and save her life by recanting her faith so she could fulfill her duties as both a daughter and a mother. But Perpetua steadfastly refused: “I cannot be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.” And with those words, she willingly went to a gruesome death facing the wild beasts before the cheering crowds in the local arena.

 

Another example from about 900 years later is that of Saint Francis of Assisi, who at a young age experienced a call from Christ to take up a life of itinerant poverty over the objections of his father, a wealthy cloth merchant who wanted Francis to follow his footsteps in the family business. When his father had Francis hauled before the bishop to try to put a stop to his nonsense, Francis dramatically stripped off his fine clothes and formally renounced his inheritance—thus beginning his lifelong career as a wandering preacher and eventual founder of the Order of Friars Minor. 

 

Such examples could be multiplied by the hundreds of thousands down to the present day. Beginning with the call to repent of our sins, the path of Christian discipleship can indeed be difficult and costly. Hence Jeremiah’s dictum that God’s word is like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces; or our Lord’s declaration that he’s come to bring not peace on earth but rather division.

 

Over the years, however, I must admit that I’ve grown impatient with scolding sermons in which preachers try to shame their congregations into doing more or giving more by accusing them of neglecting to make sufficient sacrifices for the faith or for the Church. For that really is to miss the point on a grand scale. Jesus doesn’t ask us to be willing to give up everything for the sake of self-denial as an end-in-itself. That on its own would be nothing more than masochism. No, the fire that he comes to cast upon the earth is the fire of divine love. And the life he offers us is one of such joy as makes any sacrifice completely worthwhile. So, the real invitation and challenge of the Christian life is—like Perpetua, Francis, or any of the countless others who’ve followed in the blessed steps of Christ’s most holy life—to find in him that inner joy and peace that renders any outward loss or strife totally trivial by comparison.

THE TRANSFIGURATION

(Feast of Title)

Sunday 7 August 2022

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Exodus 34:29-35                         II Peter 1:13-21

Psalm 99:5-9                                Luke 9:28-36

 

All the churches I’ve been associated with in the past have annually celebrated something called a Patronal Festival or Feast of Title. For parishes dedicated to a saint, the Patronal Festival is simply its patron saint’s day in the liturgical calendar. My parish of origin was Saint Stephen’s Church in Norwood, Pennsylvania, so its Patronal Festival was December 26th, the Feast of Stephen, the day after Christmas. On that day, the rector and his wife would open the rectory for a great party to which all the parishioners were invited after the day’s Mass.

 

Some churches don’t have patron saints, however, and are dedicated instead to specific events or mysteries of the faith, so they celebrate not a Patronal Festival but a Feast of Title. When I lived in Dallas, Texas, for one year of my life, I attended a church dedicated to the Holy Cross, so its Feast of Title was September 14th, Holy Cross Day. The first parish I served as Rector was the Church of the Ascension in Staten Island, New York, so its Feast of Title was Ascension Day. In all these cases, the Patronal Festival or Feast of Title was an occasion of great rejoicing, a special day of celebration in the parish community’s life.

 

When I arrived here at Christ Church, however, I inquired as to when the parish’s Feast of Title was, and no-one seemed to know the answer. With a bit of research, I discovered that in practice parishes called Christ Church observe their name day on a variety of occasions: from Christmas Day to the Epiphany to the Feast of Christ the King. But what I take as the most authoritative source, the old Anglo-Catholic reference manual Ritual Notes, confidently asserts that the correct day is the Feast of the Transfiguration, falling annually on August 6th, which was yesterday. So, I decided to take advantage of the Prayer Book rubrics’ permission to transfer the Feast of Title to the nearest Sunday and, well, here we are!

 

Our opportunity this morning, then, is to reflect on what it means to be a parish with this dedication in light of this Feast of Title. In other words, how does Our Lord’s Transfiguration illuminate our identity and mission as Christ Church in Woodbury?

 

Incidentally, in April I was part of a pilgrimage group in the Holy Land that went up to the top of Mount Tabor in Galilee, the mountain traditionally identified as the site of the Transfiguration. It’s a wonderful place, with spectacular scenic views in all directions: well worth a visit if you’re ever in that part of the world. Regardless of whether it’s the Transfiguration’s authentic location—a question to which I don’t think we can ever really know the answer—the story’s different elements nonetheless combine to make a clear statement of who Jesus of Nazareth really is.

 

The first significant feature is the mountain itself, where the Lord takes his three closest disciples Peter, James, and John. Throughout Scripture, mountain summits are archetypal places of encounter with God: from Mount Sinai in Egypt where Moses receives the Law, to Mount Zion in Jerusalem, where King Solomon builds the Temple dedicated to the worship of Israel’s God. As Psalm 99 puts it: “Proclaim the greatness of the Lord our God, and worship him upon his holy hill.”

 

A second feature is the light of glory. The word “glory” here translates the Hebrew word shekinah and the Greek word doxa, both of which signify a supernatural light associated with the divine presence. As Jesus is praying, his appearance is altered, and his garments become dazzlingly white.

 

A third feature is the miraculous appearance of Moses and Elijah, respectively representing the Law and Prophets, who also appear in glory and converse with Jesus about what Saint Luke calls his departure or Exodus – that is, his death, Resurrection, and Ascension – which he is to accomplish at Jerusalem.

 

A fourth feature is the cloud that comes and overshadows them all. These two features, the light of divine glory and the overshadowing cloud, are familiar Old Testament signs of God’s immediate presence. 

 

A key example is our reading from Exodus, where Moses ascends Mount Sinai, which is shrouded in clouds of thick darkness and flashes of fire; and when he descends the mountain to rejoin the people his face shines with supernatural light because he’s been in God’s direct presence. But the Old Testament is full of many other examples of this same phenomenon, such as the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night that goes before the Israelites on their forty-year journey from Egypt through the wilderness towards the Promised Land.

 

And finally, a fifth defining feature of this mysterious mountaintop encounter with God is the voice that comes out of the cloud, declaring, “This is my Son, my chosen: listen to him!”

 

Here again, the Old Testament background is crucial to an understanding of what’s being said. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the term “Son of God” is most often applied to the kings of Israel. So those present on the mountaintop with would definitely have understood the voice from heaven as proclaiming Jesus the true King of Israel. Hence Peter writes many years later [in today’s Epistle] that “we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” 

 

Moreover, since the kings of Israel typically entered their office by being anointed with oil, they were known as the Lord’s anointed. And the word for “the Anointed One” in Hebrew is Messiah and in Greek Christ. So, in proclaiming that Jesus is God’s beloved Son, the voice from heaven is also declaring him to be God’s Anointed One, the Messiah, or Christ. And that’s the reason why it’s particularly appropriate for a parish with the dedication Christ Church to keep the Transfiguration as its Feast of Title. 

 

So, what does all this imply for our life together here and now? The key command comes in what the voice from the cloud says next: “Listen to him.” Remember, Moses and Elijah are standing right there with Jesus, but the voice from heaven says, “Listen to him.” In other words, Jesus is the one who authoritatively sums up and interprets all that the Law and the Prophets have spoken. He doesn’t contradict them or set them aside, but he does fulfill them. If we want to understand their true meaning, we must listen to him.

 

It follows that when we read, ponder, and seek to implement the words of Jesus in our own lives, we’re following not merely a human teacher, however exalted, but God incarnate. He may lead us down off the mountain into the dark valley, but even there he’ll always be with us, guiding us home towards our final destination. Of all the voices in our lives competing for our attention, his alone is worthy of our ultimate trust and obedience. So, as members of Christ Church, Woodbury, we can do no better than always to remember and heed the voice from the cloud: “This is my Son, my chosen; listen to him!”

PROPER 13, YEAR C

July 31, 2022

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Ecclesiastes 1: 12-14; 2:18-23

Psalm 49:1-11

Luke 12:13-21

 

Running through today’s readings we encounter a certain streak of pessimism, even cynicism. The Old Testament reading from Ecclesiastes sets the tone: “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!”

 

I must admit that I love the Book of Ecclesiastes precisely because of its brutal honesty and realism. The author, who calls himself “the Preacher,” complains that he’s destined to leave all that he’s worked for all his life to those who’ll come after him; and who knows whether they’ll be wise or fools? What have we, he asks plaintively, from all our toil and strain under the sun? All our days are full of pain; our work is a vexation; even in the night our mind does not rest. Behold, all is vanity and a striving after the wind. 

 

I’m sure we all have days like that and undergo moods when we can relate to those sentiments. Ecclesiastes is utterly devoid of sanctimonious piety. A somewhat vulgar contemporary saying concisely sums up its message: Life is a [b-word] and then you die!

 

Psalm 49, ingeniously chosen to complement the Old Testament reading, takes up a similar theme: “There be some that put their trust in their goods; and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches” … but “we see that the wise die also; like the dull and stupid they perish and leave their wealth to those who come after them.” 

 

Then in the Gospel reading we have the Parable of the Rich Fool: again, one of my favorites among all Our Lord’s parables. The land of a rich landowner yields abundant harvests, so that he pulls down his barns and builds larger ones to store his crops. Then, noting with satisfaction that he has goods laid up for many years, he says to himself: “Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry” only to be told by God, “Fool! This night your life is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” 

 

What a bummer. After surveying these readings, the question I find myself compelled to ask is: Where’s the good news here? At my seminary, incidentally, we were taught in our homiletics classes always to ask ourselves this question when preparing our sermons. Our job as preachers, after all, is to proclaim the Gospel; and the word Gospel means good news. And this question is a useful one to ask ourselves as we listen to sermons. Where’s the good news here? If we can’t find an answer to that question, then that’s a sign that the preacher isn’t doing his job properly. So, when a sermon begins, always expect to hear, always listen out for, the good news!

 

In today’s Gospel reading, I think that the good news comes in Our Lord’s statement immediately preceding the parable: “Take heed, and beware of all covetousness, for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” That statement carries good news because it implies, if only negatively, that there is available to us a life—true and everlasting life—that exists apart from and independently of material wealth and possessions. That life is equally available to rich and poor alike; and it’s the one thing worth seeking above everything else that competes for our attention and effort. (To circle back to Ecclesiastes for a moment: the book's beauty is precisely that it describes so accurately the futility of a life lived apart from God.)

 

 So, the question becomes: How do we gain this life of which our Lord speaks? Here I think at least part of the answer comes right at the end of the Gospel where Jesus contrasts laying up treasure for ourselves and being “rich toward God.”

 

The implication is that the rich fool’s mistake lies not in accumulating wealth per se, but in what he chooses to do with it: hoarding it in larger barns and settling down to take his ease, eat, drink, and be merry. He’s looking first to his own interests, to his own comfort and enjoyment, rather than to how he might use his wealth in God’s service for the advancement of God’s Kingdom. He could donate at least some of those stored crops to feed the poor and the hungry, but he doesn’t think of that. That choice, to lay up treasures for himself rather than to be rich towards God, is what makes him a fool in the end.

 

So, the parable’s point is not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong—for those of us who are that fortunate—with our pensions, 401ks, investment portfolios, and homes with paid-off mortgages. The question of eternal importance for us is instead how we use this wealth: to what end and to whose benefit?

 

Indeed, no matter how much or how little material wealth we may enjoy in this life, the existential question for each of us is whether we’re laying up treasures for ourselves or being rich towards God. So, in the days of this coming week, we might do well to reflect and pray on this question. What would it mean in my own unique circumstances to be rich towards God? What would being rich towards God look like in my life? The answers might not be immediately apparent, but sometimes the best we can do is simply to keep on asking the right questions, and that is absolutely the right question to ask.

 

For by being rich towards God, we take hold of and enter into that life which does not consist in the abundance of possessions. And that, in the end, is the only life that matters.