FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS, YEAR B

December 27, 2020

St. Matthew and St. Mark, Barrington, R.I.

Psalm 147:13-21

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

John 1:1-18

It is once again a great pleasure to share with you—both the few here in the church and all those participating remotely at home—in offering worship to Almighty God on the Lord’s Day. 

The readings appointed for this first Sunday after Christmas present a wonderful array of images of light, warmth, and life dispelling the dark, cold, and dead of winter.

These closing months of 2020 have turned out to be a wintry season in ways that go well beyond climate and weather. So, this morning’s scriptural promises are particularly welcome not only when we’ve just marked the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, but also at this particular time in the history of our communities, the nation, and the world.

The verses of Psalm 147 that we’ve just prayed together describe a freezing winter storm: “[God] gives snow like wool; he scatters hoarfrost like ashes. He scatters his hail like breadcrumbs; Who can stand against his cold?” But then, in the immediately following verse, comes the thaw: “He sends forth his word and melts them; he blows with his wind and the waters flow.”

Such a psalm can be read as depicting not only material but also spiritual realities. God’s word is capable of thawing not only a frozen landscape but also our frozen hearts. God blowing with his wind so that the waters flow calls to mind the breath of the Holy Spirit and the waters of Baptism.

Today’s reading from the Prophet Isaiah uses similar springtime imagery to portray the effects of the Lord’s coming: “For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and a garden causes what it sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all nations.” Then the prophet continues to describe light driving out darkness: “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch.” 

And today’s Gospel takes up these images of light and life to describe the Incarnation of the Divine Word, the eternal Son of the Father, whose life is the light of all people: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it … The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

In the children’s story, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe—a spiritual classic which I highly recommend to readers of all ages—C. S. Lewis deploys the metaphor of winter to portray a fallen world. The alternate-reality land of Narnia, accessed by a group of school children through a magic wardrobe, lies frozen under a curse, blanketed by snow. As Lewis puts it, it’s always winter, and Christmas never comes.

But when the lion Aslan, the story’s Christ-figure, arrives in Narnia, the thaw begins. The snowing ceases, the ice begins to melt, shoots of plants and flowers start poking through the ground, the leaves begin to bud, and, to cap it all off, Santa Claus arrives with his reindeer and sleigh to distribute gifts to one and all. (Of course, as a British writer of a certain generation, Lewis calls him not Santa Claus but Father Christmas.) Aslan’s arrival in Narnia wonderfully symbolizes Christ bringing light and life to a world that has lain for centuries under the curse of sin and death. In short, Christmas has come.

Over the past few years, I’ve discovered that the Collect of the Day often provides a helpful interpretive key to the readings and psalms appointed for that day in the Church calendar. Since we have yet to read the Collect of the Day in this service of Morning Prayer, let me read it to you now by way of anticipation: “Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives, through Jesus Christ our Lord …”

Notice how this Collect describes a three-step process. First, God has poured upon us the light of his incarnate Word. Jesus Christ has come into the world; his birth is what we’ve just celebrated on Christmas Day. But second, this light is not meant to remain external, illuminating us from without. So we pray that it may be enkindled in our hearts, enlightening and warming us from within. Then, third, with our hearts thus set on fire, we pray that this light may shine forth in our lives, bringing life and warmth to those around us—our families and friends, our homes and workplaces, and, further afield, among people and communities across the nation and throughout the world.

A tension sometimes arises in the Church’s life between two tendencies that are sometimes called “personal religion” and “the Social Gospel”—or, in some traditions, “the contemplative life” and “the active life.” That is: between those who want to emphasize the Christian relationship with God in worship, prayer, and meditation, and those who want to emphasize the Christian calling to go out into the world and participate in the Church’s mission and ministry. (As a visitor and guest, I hasten to add, I have no idea whether or how this tension plays out in this parish—but I’ve certainly seen it in many other parishes and congregations.)

In any case, today’s Collect suggests that this is not an “either/or” but a “both/and” proposition. That is, the light of Christ cannot truly shine forth in our lives unless it’s first enkindled in our hearts. Conversely, when that light does warm our hearts, we can’t help but want to let it shine forth by acts of kindness, words of encouragement, works of mercy, and lives of service.

Above all, we need to remember that Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate, is the true source of all light, warmth, and life. As today’s Gospel says of Saint John the Baptist, we are not that light, but are sent to bear witness to that light. And so, during this twelve-day season of Christmas, we might profitably meditate on that Collect, and then reflect on what steps we can take now to invite Christ into our hearts, so that he may set us on fire, and make our lives a beacon of his light to the world.

ADVENT IV, YEAR B

December 20, 2020

St. Matthew and St. Mark, Barrington, R.I.

II Samuel 7:1-11, 16

Luke 1:26-38

The readings appointed for this Fourth Sunday in Advent reveal that our God is a God of surprises! In the Old Testament reading from Second Samuel, God surprises King David; and in the Gospel reading from Saint Luke, God surprises the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Finally enjoying the peace of his kingdom, King David tells the Prophet Nathan that he wants to build a house for God—that is, a Temple to house the Ark of the Covenant which up until that time has had only a tent for shelter. We remember that the Ark was the chest containing the two stone tablets, engraved with the Ten Commandments, which Moses had brought down from Mount Sinai; it was also considered God’s throne on earth: the appointed meeting place between God and humanity. 

But God tells Nathan to go and say to David: “Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt until this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle.”

Then in a wonderful play on words, God basically says, “No, you don’t build me a house; I build you a house!” Here the word “house” means not a physical building or material edifice, but rather a royal dynasty. And God makes David an amazing promise: “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established forever.” It’s not what David is expecting to hear; but God is a God of surprises!

Approximately nine centuries later, God sends the angel Gabriel to tell the Virgin Mary that she’s been chosen to be the one through whom God will fulfill this ancient promise to David. Coming literally out of the blue, Gabriel addresses Mary with the mysterious words: “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Mary’s shock and surprise are apparent as Luke tells us: “She was much perplexed by his words and wondered what sort of greeting this might be.”

But the most surprising part is yet to come. Gabriel explains to Mary that even while remaining a virgin she will conceive and bear a son who will inherit the kingdom of his ancestor David, and of whose kingdom there shall be no end. 

Gabriel’s answer to the question, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” effectively describes Mary as a new Ark of the Covenant. We remember that David’s son King Solomon finally did build that Temple in Jerusalem, and placed the Ark in its inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies. But when the Babylonians destroyed the Temple in the sixth century BC, the Ark disappeared, and to this day nobody knows what happened to it. By New Testament times, the Holy of Holies in the rebuilt Jerusalem Temple stood empty.

When Gabriel says to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you,” he’s using the same language that the Old Testament used to describe the glory of the Lord filling the Tent of Meeting (and later the Temple) when God would descend from heaven upon the Ark. Similarly overshadowed by the divine glory, Mary becomes the Ark of a New Covenant, the new dwelling-place of God on earth. It’s probably the last thing Mary is expecting to hear; but God is a God of surprises!

In Luke’s Greek, the grammatical form of Mary’s answer, “let it be with me according to your word” expresses not merely passive acquiescence but enthusiastic affirmation and active cooperation. It’s not like she’s saying, “Yeah, right, whatever,” but rather, “YES! Let’s make this happen!” And that assent is the critical prerequisite to the Word taking flesh and dwelling among us that we shall be celebrating this week on Christmas Day.

The great gift that Mary receives at the Annunciation, the great favor that she’s found with God, does not mean in any way that her life will be easy. There will be moments of inexpressible joy, like the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. There will also be times of danger and hardship, such as the flight into Egypt to escape King Herod’s massacre of the Innocents. And eventually that sword of unbearable sorrow, prophesied by old Simeon in the Temple, will pierce Mary’s own soul as she stands at the foot of the cross watching her Son suffer and die. But in the end, her faithful obedience will turn out to be infinitely worthwhile as she’s among the witnesses to the divine surprise of all surprises, her Son’s resurrection from the dead and ascension into heavenly glory—into which she also will be taken up at the end of her earthly life.

Today’s readings invite us to be receptive to whatever surprises God may still have in store for us—as individuals, as families, as communities, as the Church. It’s been a hard year, and I think that we’re all ready for some Good News. The question is how we can ready ourselves to say yes to God with willing consent and active cooperation, as Mary did. The answer, I think, is fairly simple. We need to remain constant in prayer, open to the unexpected, and reliant on God’s grace and strength to do in and through us what we could never do for ourselves. 

Notice that in today’s Old Testament reading King David does nothing to earn or merit the promises he receives from God. On the contrary, David is not that exemplary a character, and God’s pledges to him are sheer gifts of undeserved favor—made according to God’s goodness and faithfulness and not necessarily David’s.

By contrast, the Church has traditionally taken the Blessed Virgin Mary as the highest model and example of Christian discipleship. Even so, God’s grace is everything. Gabriel’s initial address to Mary, “Greetings, favored one!” might be translated better as “Rejoice, O highly-graced one!” Or even: “Hail, full of grace!” This greeting suggests that God has already prepared Mary for her unique mission. All that’s required is Mary’s willing assent, which is in turn made possible only by the special grace with which God has filled her from her beginning.

While Mary’s vocation to be the Mother of God Incarnate is unique and unrepeatable, we each of us have our own calling to serve God and our neighbor in our own distinctive way. The good news is that God has also been equipping us with his grace all along, at least from our Baptism (if not before). He continues to strengthen us daily, as we turn to him in prayer, and weekly, as we keep the Lord’s Day by whatever means are available to us even in this wretched time of pandemic. So, we trust in God’s promises, rely on his grace, and stand ready to say yes when God surprises us—as he will—with his calling and with his gifts.

PROPER 24, YEAR A

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Sts. Matthew & Mark Church, Barrington, RI

Isaiah 45:1-7

Psalm 96:1-13

Matthew 22:15-22

“Give therefore to the Emperor the things that are the Emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s”—Possibly one of our Lord’s best-known and most-quoted sayings.

Delivering this verdict, Jesus sidesteps the trap set for him in the question, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor or not?” If he says no, he can be charged with sedition and rebellion against the Roman authorities. If he says yes, he will incur the resentment and wrath of many of his fellow Jews, for whom the Roman taxes are a burdensome token of national subjugation and oppression.

His answer deftly steers clear of both pitfalls. Observing that the coin for the tax is stamped with Caesar’s image, he concludes: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” No-one can possibly find fault with that answer.

Commenting on this saying, several early Church Fathers pointed out that just as the coins for the tax were stamped with Caesar’s image, so we human beings are stamped with God’s image. According to the creation story at the beginning of the Book of Genesis: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness …’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

In the fourth century, Saint Hilary of Poitiers wrote: “We are to render to God the things that are God’s: that is, body and soul and will. The coin of Caesar is gold, on which his image is stamped. But humanity is God’s coin, on which is the image of God. Therefore, give your money to Caesar; but keep for God a blameless conscience.”

So, today’s Gospel invites us to consider the twofold question: What might it mean for us to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s? And what might it mean for us to render to God the things that are God’s?

Three weeks ago, my wife became a United States citizen. For a number of reasons, including wanting to vote in the upcoming election, she finally decided to take the plunge (having lived in this country as a permanent resident for 32 years after arriving from England where she was born and grew up). So over a period of months, she filled out the applications, supplied the supporting documents, went for her interview, took her citizenship test, and finally was among a group of 35 people being naturalized outside the Federal Courthouse on the harbor front in Boston. A key part of that ceremony was the Oath of Allegiance, which spells out the duties of citizenship in some very specific ways, including supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic, and being willing to serve in the armed forces or in a noncombatant capacity when required to do so by law.

The New Testament affirms the duty of Christians to obey the laws and contribute constructively to the common life of whatever earthly kingdom or nation we find ourselves residing in. Saint Paul writes in the thirteenth chapter of the Letter to the Romans: “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” (Today’s Old Testament reading illustrates this principle by showing that the Persian King Cyrus, who neither knew nor acknowledged Israel’s God, was nonetheless God’s chosen instrument to accomplish his saving purposes in history.)

A bit further on, Saint Paul continues: “Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.” So civic obedience is a Christian obligation. The one exception is when any earthly authority asks us to do something that seriously violates God’s laws. In that event, we are to obey God rather than human beings. For example, the early Church martyrs went to the lions rather than comply with the command to renounce Christ and worship the Emperor. So, there are limits to Caesar’s legitimate claims. 

Apart from that exception, we render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s by practicing the civic virtues of good citizenship: voting, paying our taxes, obeying the law, performing jury duty, participating in the political process, and offering public service when called upon to do so. 

What might it mean, then, to render to God the things that are God’s? Psalm 96, which we just recited, gives us a good clue to where we begin: “Ascribe unto the Lord the honor due his name; bring offerings and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness …” That's what we're about here this morning, isn't it? The ultimate answer is that we render God his due by offering ourselves to his service: in worship, prayer, devotion, faithful obedience, and active love of God and neighbor.

So, here’s a question for us all to ponder during the coming weeks: Is there anything we can each do, more than we’re already doing, to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s? How might God be calling us to be both better citizens and better Christians? Let’s give that question serious thought and prayer in the days ahead.

The challenges of doing so in this present time of pandemic and political upheaval are indeed difficult, and I don't want to minimize the difficulties. But we gain reassurance and encouragement from the affirmation implicit in today’s Gospel that we bear God’s image just as ancient Roman coins bore Caesar’s image. The coin used to pay the tax derived its purchasing power from the combination of its material, gold, a precious metal, and the stamped image which made it legal tender as currency in the Roman Empire.

Well, having been created in God’s image and likeness, we’re infinitely more precious in God’s sight than any gold; and having been sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, we carry infinitely greater spiritual purchasing power than any coin. And so, relying on God’s power rather than on our own, we shall truly find the wherewithal to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.

PROPER 23, YEAR A

Sunday, October 11, 2020

Sts. Matthew & Mark Church, Barrington, RI

Isaiah 25:1-9

Psalm 23

Matthew 22:1-14

During this time of pandemic and social distancing, one of the things I’ve missed most is the opportunity to gather in large groups on celebratory occasions involving food and drink. The last big dinner I attended was my mother’s ninetieth birthday party in Philadelphia on March 7, just as we were all about to go into lockdown. I suspect many of us have experienced similar feelings of social deprivation.

For many Christians, moreover, it’s been difficult to do without the Eucharist. I applaud all of you for making the effort to be here for Morning Prayer today; and I admire the way you’re clearly doing your best in spite of trying circumstances to make a fitting offering of worship to God. It’ll be a great blessing when we’re able once again to gather safely in our churches and partake of the spiritual food and drink of the Lord’s Body and Blood.

Somewhat poignantly, then, today’s readings invoke the image running throughout the Sacred Scriptures of God’s Kingdom as a great feast. The prophet Isaiah proclaims: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” In the beloved words of Psalm 23, the psalmist addresses the Good Shepherd: “You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; you have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over.” And in today’s Gospel, the Lord tells the parable beginning, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.”

Whatever else we know or don’t know about the life of the world to come, these passages and many others like them suggest that eating and drinking together will be a key component of what goes on there. This insight suggests in turn that our celebratory meals here on earth, both sacred and secular, serve in their own ways as pointers, anticipations, and foretastes of the joy that awaits us in eternity. Heaven is like a great party—more enjoyable and fulfilling than any celebration we can experience or even imagine in this life. (And even if you’re an introvert like I am, don’t worry—there’s a happy and rewarding place in the party for us too!)

Jesus likens the kingdom of heaven not just to any feast, but specifically to a wedding banquet that a king gave for his son. Commentators down through the centuries have suggested that the wedding symbolizes the joining of the divine and human natures in the Person of Christ, or the nuptial union of Christ and his Church, or the marriage of heaven and earth in the Kingdom of God—or perhaps, indeed, all of these at once.

So, the good news is that God is giving a party and we’re all invited! The not-so-good news is that not everyone comes to the party or ends up staying once they’ve arrived. As the parable unfolds, some of those originally invited refuse to attend when the time comes. They self-select out. And then, after the king sends his servants into the streets to gather in all whom they find to fill the wedding hall with guests, not everyone gets to stay. When the king enters, he notices one of the guests without the proper wedding-robe; and when the man is unable to answer why he’s not properly attired, the king orders him bound and cast into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This twist in the story has always struck me as being a bit unfair. After all, these guests have just been gathered from the streets into the wedding hall with no prior warning. How can anyone blame them for not being properly dressed for a wedding? To answer this question, we need to delve a little deeper into the parable’s symbolism.

One venerable tradition of interpretation suggests that the wedding hall represents the Church on earth. The servants—that is, the apostles and evangelists—have been sent out to gather in all whom they find, both good and bad. The Church is thus a mixed body comprising both saints and sinners. The key point is that neither the servants nor the other guests get to decide who’s worthy to enter or indeed to remain once they’ve come in. The king’s entry is an image of the last judgment, when the king and no-one else will be able to see who’s properly clothed and who’s not. In the meantime, we’re all gathered, good and bad alike, into the wedding hall waiting for the king to enter and for the feast to begin.

What, then, are we to make of the wedding garment? Down through the centuries, commentators have advanced various interpretations of what it might symbolize. Saint Augustine suggested that it represents the virtue of love or charity, without which any other gift or virtue we may have is worth nothing; Saint Hilary, that it represents the Holy Spirit; Saint Jerome, that it represents the life of obedience to God’s commandments, by which we are clothed in righteousness.

All that leaves us with the question: Assuming that we accept God’s invitation to the banquet, how do we ensure that we’ve clothed ourselves in the proper wedding garment so that we’ll be allowed to stay when the king enters? After multiple cycles of reflecting on this Gospel every three years when it comes up in the Sunday lectionary, I’ve come to the conclusion that the only satisfactory answer is that it’s nothing we can achieve on our own. Whatever the wedding garment represents, it can only be something that God makes freely available to each of us simply for the asking. Indeed, some commentators suggest that in ancient wedding feasts, everyone was offered the appropriate item of clothing on the way in. In that case, the man without the wedding garment was either too proud or too stubborn to accept the free gift of God’s grace, adopting instead the posture that if you want me here, fine, but you’ll have to take me on my own terms. And we see where that attitude got him.

In a few minutes, we’ll have the opportunity to meditate on the lyrics of Hymn 487, a wonderful poem entitled “The Call” by the seventeenth  century Anglican priest George Herbert. The middle stanza speaks directly to the question of who’s worthy to attend the wedding banquet: 

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength

Such a Light as shows a Feast,

Such a Feast as mends in length,

Such a Strength as makes his guest.

These lines feature the triple images of light, feast, and strength. The light of God’s Word invites us to God’s feast. The feast in turn mends us, healing us of our wounds and infirmities, at length—indeed for eternity. And it is God’s strength, not our own, that finally makes us into guests worthy to partake of his heavenly banquet.

 PROPER 18, YEAR A

Sunday 6 September 2020

St. John’s, Newport

 

Romans 13:8-14

Matthew 18:15-20

 

From our Epistle reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “The night is far spent. The day is at hand …” What a wonderful affirmation! For many of us, the balance of the year 2020 has indeed seemed like a prolonged night. Yet even in the midst of the darkest night, we always have God’s promise of an approaching dawn. I could be wrong, but I think that we can legitimately entertain the hope that if not by the end of this year, then certainly in the coming year, our current situation in this country and the world—with respect to the coronavirus pandemic and all its attendant economic and political woes—will brighten considerably. “The night is far spent. The day is at hand …” Good news indeed.

 

Of course, St. Paul is writing not of any particular historical crisis, but rather of the dawning of God’s eschatological kingdom. For Christians, that is the ultimate hope that illuminates all our temporal hopes in this world. Whatever disappointments and frustrations we may experience in this life, God’s promise of eternal life in Christ remains valid and trustworthy.

 

St. Paul combines the promise with the exhortation to make ourselves ready for the dawning day. “The night is far spent. The day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness; and let us put on the armor of light.” In several places in his letters, Paul repeats the theme that under cover of darkness, when we think no-one can see us, we may be tempted to engage in activities that we’d be ashamed to have brought into the light of day.

 

In his classic autobiographical work The Confessions, St. Augustine of Hippo tells of his conversion to full Christian faith and practice upon reading the following verses in today's Epistle. Unsure of what he believed or what he should do with his life, he was meditating in his garden one day, seeking guidance. From a nearby garden he heard a child’s voice playfully singing the Latin words, Tolle, lege! Tolle, lege! “Take and read! Take and read!” So he picked up a copy of the Scriptures, opened it at random, and the first words his eyes fell upon were those that follow in today’s Epistle: “Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness; not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.” On reading those words, Augustine’s life was transformed; and the former profligate sinner started down the road to becoming one of the Western Church's foremost bishops and saints.

 

A key component of the attitudes and behaviors that St. Paul calls us to forsake in preparation for the dawn are “strife and envying,” translated in the Revised Standard Version as “quarreling and jealousy.” Here Paul is picking up on his earlier exhortation in the same passage to “love one another,” for “love is the fulfilling of the Law.”

 

Our Gospel reading from St. Matthew addresses this same theme of loving one another, and avoiding quarreling and jealousy, in the set of instructions beginning, “if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone …” Our Lord commends to his disciples a threefold procedure for conflict resolution in the Church’s life: First, try to resolve the problem one-to-one; if that doesn’t work, take along two or three witnesses who can perhaps assist as mediators; if that doesn’t work, bring the matter to the full Christian assembly; and if that doesn’t work, cast out the offending party as if a heathen or tax collector.

 

That specific procedure may have worked well in the first and second centuries but has since become impractical, and the Church has evolved other methods of dealing with such problems. The procedural details are far less important, however, than the underlying principle, which remains valid for all time: namely, when conflict threatens to divide a Christian community, the Gospel imperative is to do everything we conscientiously can to be reconciled. We’re not to acquiesce in the breaking of relationships in the Church until we’re clear that every reasonable effort at reconciliation has been tried.

 

Our Lord goes on to explain that disagreement, division, and disunity hold the Church back from being all that it can be and achieving all that it can achieve. By contrast, the costly work of reconciliation opens the way for God to do amazing things in a Christian community whose members are united in love and prayer: “if two of you agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

 

Having been a clergy friend of this parish of St. John’s, Newport, for almost twenty years now, I can testify that God is doing great things in your midst. The work of capital fund-raising, restoration, and rebuilding that you’ve undertaken bespeaks a wonderful vision of hope for the future. The results so far are marvelous. You’ve had your ups and downs, with times of conflict and division in the past, but at the moment you appear to be united in spirit and purpose. It’s a joy to watch, even from a distance. Although he'll probably be upset with me for saying so, a great deal of the credit goes to your rector, Fr. Humphrey, clearly a man of deep prayer, who models the way of Christian reconciliation and forgiveness.

 

My message to you today is that you can count on God to keep on doing great things in your midst so long as you remain united in faith, hope, and love—praying together for the same things, forgiving one another, and maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Easier said than done! In fact, what I’m describing is humanly impossible. The good news, however, is that we're not in this alone; God doesn’t leave us to our own devices. The Collect of the Day invites us to trust with all our hearts in the God who always resists the proud who confide in their own strength, but does not forsake those who make their boast of his mercy. With that reassurance, although the night is far spent, we joyfully await the approaching day.

 

PROPER 12, YEAR A

July 26, 2020

St. Andrew’s by-the-Sea, Little Compton, RI

Genesis 29:15-28

Psalm 105:1-11, 45b

Romans 8:26-39

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

As today is my final Sunday with you this summer, I want to take the opportunity to say how much I’ve enjoyed our worship together. Officiating virtually by Zoom has been a new experience for me; and while it’s not the same as being there in person, it’s certainly the next best thing—a great way to stay connected in a time of physical separation and relative isolation. I know you’re looking forward to having Lynn back with you next Sunday; in the meantime we keep her continued recovery and progress in our prayers.

Today is also my first time of having the occasion to preach on this Sunday’s reading from Genesis on Jacob and Laban. In my previous parishes, we used a slightly different form of the Sunday lectionary in which I don’t recall this story ever coming up. And it’s a good thing to reflect on passages of Scripture that one may have read many times but never had the occasion to explore in depth.

To be honest, however, my first reaction to this reading was to wonder what I could possibly find that would be edifying for us. Some aspects of the story are charming, such as Jacob’s deep love for Rachel. Other aspects are entertaining and amusing, such as Laban’s duping Jacob into marrying his older daughter Leah so that he has to work another seven years to marry his true love Rachel. This part of Genesis seems to be full of stories of tricksters pulling one over on each other! And, from the perspective of contemporary sensibilities, the context of the story is frankly appalling, with a patriarchal society treating women as property to be exchanged between fathers and husbands, not to mention polygamy.

But for the preacher, the question of overarching importance must always be: Where is God in this story? What was God doing here? As I puzzled over this question, I must confess that I was initially stumped. But then it hit me! Even through the dubious means of Laban’s deception, God was fulfilling his promise to Jacob—namely, that his descendants would multiply and spread abroad to fill the earth and become a blessing to all its families.

As we read on in the subsequent chapters of Genesis, we discover that between Leah and Rachel, and their two maidservants Bilhah and Zilpah, Jacob becomes the father of twelve sons—the ancestors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel—who are absolutely critical to God’s plan not just for the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but indeed for the salvation of the entire world. I could be wrong, but I think we’re meant to understand that none of this would ever have happened if Jacob had simply married Rachel at the outset, as was his wish. For, as it turned out, Rachel ended up bearing only two of Jacob’s twelve sons. (Of the other ten, Leah bore six, and Bilhah and Zilpah each bore two.)

So, even though Jacob didn’t realize it at the time, God was already at work, turning Laban’s deceit and exploitation to his own purposes, to bring about the fulfillment of his promises. As the psalmist sings in celebration: “God has always been mindful of his covenant, the promise he made for a thousand generations: the covenant he made with Abraham, the oath that he swore to Isaac; which he established as a statue for Jacob, an everlasting covenant for Israel …”

Read this way, the story illustrates the principle that Saint Paul enunciates in this morning’s reading from the Epistle to the Romans: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

A similar theme stands out in the series of somewhat mysterious and enigmatic parables told by our Lord in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed … yeast … treasure hidden in a field … a pearl of great value. One common feature in these images is great things arising from small beginnings that are either hidden, imperceptible, or easy to overlook. Another is that God’s kingdom is of such enormous importance as to be worth the sacrifice of all else. One sells everything one has to buy the field containing that treasure, or to obtain that pearl in the marketplace …

Taken together, then, one question that today’s readings invite us to consider is this: As we look back on our own lives in this world so far, are we able to identify situations or events in which God was present and working to fulfill his purposes for us in ways that we didn’t recognize or understand at the time, but which may have become clearer after the fact—perhaps years or even decades later? We might take some time this coming week to reflect on that question, and then thank God for his loving presence and involvement in our lives, and rededicate ourselves to his service in gratitude for all his blessings.

The Collect of the Day wonderfully sums up these themes and perhaps also furnishes a useful pattern for our own daily prayers: “O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal …”

Notice how that Collect ties in with today’s readings. God was indeed Jacob’s protector, ruler, and guide, increasing and multiplying his mercy upon him. And in the Epistle, Saint Paul promises that in Christ we will indeed not lose the things eternal: “Who,” Paul asks, “will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Or I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, or rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

These words furnished a powerful reassurance to the first-century Christians in Rome who were vulnerable to persecution and death for their faith. For us, they offer the similar reassurance that God is for us, working in often hidden ways to bring us through the midst of present troubles to the glorious fulfillment of his purposes not only for us but for all creation. So, by God’s grace, we gain the courage to follow and serve Christ in this world, confident that as our protector, ruler, and guide, he will bring us through things temporal so that we lose not the things eternal.

PROPER 11, YEAR A

July 19, 2020

St. Andrew’s-by-the-Sea, Little Compton, RI

Genesis 28:10-19a

Psalm 139:1-11, 22-23

Romans 8:12-25

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

A theme running through today’s readings is the vast gulf separating human perception from divine knowledge. In his omniscience—that is, his all-knowingness—God sees everything, including all that remains hidden from within the limitations of our finite human perspective. As the psalmist says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain to it.”

But then, occasionally, and in accordance with God’s own saving purposes, we’re granted glimpses of divine truth—not by means of any innate human cleverness of our own, but rather by means of God’s revelation to us. Today’s readings afford multiple instances of this wonderful process of God’s Word illuminating our minds with the brightness of divine wisdom.

In the reading from Genesis, Jacob is fleeing from his elder twin brother Esau. We may recall in last Sunday’s reading how Jacob extorted Esau’s rights to his inheritance in return for a bowl of lentil stew. In the intervening chapters, moreover, Jacob has impersonated Esau and stolen his blessing from their dying father Isaac. Understandably enraged, Esau wants to kill Jacob, who in turn escapes to take refuge with his uncle Laban in a place called Haran.

On the first night of his journey, sleeping out under the stars with a stone for his pillow, Jacob dreams of a ladder set up between earth and heaven, on which the angels of God are ascending and descending. Then the Lord draws alongside Jacob and speaks to him, making a series of amazing promises: he and his descendants will inherit the land on which he lies; his offspring will spread abroad in all directions as numerous as the dust of the earth, and they will become a blessing to all the families in the world. The Lord will be with Jacob wherever he goes, and will ultimately bring him back to this land from which he’s now fleeing in fear for his life.

The transformation is almost total. Jacob went to sleep a fugitive and refugee; he wakes up the inheritor of God’s promises to his fathers Abraham and Isaac. Such was the gap between human perception and divine wisdom that Jacob exclaims in wonder, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it! … How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

A similar gulf between human perception and divine wisdom is evident in the Gospel parable of the wheat and the weeds. When an enemy sows noxious weeds in a farmer’s wheatfield, the servants offer to go and pull up the weeds. But the householder says, “No, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat as well.” Let both grow together until the harvest. Only after they’ve both been cut and reaped in the harvest can they be safely sorted and separated.

Saint Augustine of Hippo gave the classical interpretation of this parable around the turn of the fifth century when he likened the Church in this world to a mixed field of wheat and weeds growing together. Against rigorists and purists who wanted to excommunicate evil-doers from the Church’s fellowship for life, Augustine said no, the Church is as much a hospital for sinners as a showcase for saints. Moreover, we’re unlikely to know with any certainty who are which before the Last Judgment. Many who appeared in this life to be the worst sinners could then turn out to have been the greatest saints, and vice versa.

The contrast for Augustine, then, was between the sorry state of the Church in this world and the final revelation of its goodness, truth, and beauty in the next, when “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” In the meantime, God alone knows the inmost secrets of each person’s heart. In the words of the psalmist: “Lord you have searched me out and known me … you discern my thoughts from afar.”

Again, Saint Paul draws a contrast between present appearances and future reality in the Epistle reading from Romans: “I consider,” he writes, “that the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” A bit further on, Paul describes a creation in bondage to decay groaning as if in labor, and not only creation but we ourselves, groaning inwardly, as we wait for redemption.

The problem is that from our finite human perspective we’re apt to focus our attention more on our present bondage and groaning than on the glory waiting to be revealed. So Paul exhorts us to wait patiently in hope: “Now hope that is seen is not hope … But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Taken together, these Scripture readings invite us to renew our trust in the God who sees infinitely more than we do. In the midst of a global pandemic, a faltering economy, and an ideologically polarized body politic, the temptation is to give in to despair. In the past weeks, I’ve occasionally found myself wondering: How are we ever going to get through all this?

At such moments, however, we need to remind ourselves that God desires only our good, and is working through our present troubles to bring us to a future beyond anything that we can presently imagine or visualize. Even when God seems absent or hidden, he’s always in our midst, bringing good out of evil, hope out of despair. So at length we shall be able to say along with Jacob, “Surely the Lord was in this place—and we did not know it!”

This hope, I hasten to add, presupposes no merit or worthiness of our own. Notice that in the Genesis reading, Jacob has done nothing to earn or deserve the promises that God makes to him. On the contrary, he’s a despicable character, a scoundrel (albeit maybe a likable scoundrel). But God favors him and blesses him anyway—as a sheer gift of unmerited grace and divine mercy. And if God did so for Jacob, he can certainly do so for each of us, without exception.

So, the foundation of our hope is the worthiness of Christ, in whom, as Saint Paul says in today’s Epistle, we’ve received the Spirit of adoption as God’s children. “When we cry ‘Abba, Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”

In the days of the coming week, we might spend some time reflecting on our Christian hope and renewing our trust in God’s promises—especially in view of the vast gulf between the divine omniscience and our limited human vision. For the good news is that God sees, clearly and eternally, even what at present we cannot.