SECOND SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

January 17, 2021

St. Andrew’s Church, Little Compton, R.I.

Psalm 135:1-5; 12-17; I Samuel 3:1-10(11-20); John 1:43-51

This season after the Epiphany focuses our attention on manifestations of God’s light in the world, culminating in the revelation of Jesus Christ as the Light Incarnate. And today’s readings emphasize that these epiphanies often take the form of God’s call addressed to specific individuals.

We may notice some striking parallels between the stories of the calling of the boy Samuel in the Old Testament reading, and the calling of Nathanael in the Gospel. For one thing, both recipients initially misunderstand what they’re hearing.

When Samuel is lying down to sleep in the Temple, the voice of the Lord calls to him, “Samuel, Samuel.” He initially thinks it’s the priest Eli, to whom he goes and says, “Here I am, for you called me.” But Eli answers, “No, I didn’t; go back to bed.” After three times, Eli realizes what’s happening, and instructs Samuel, “If he calls you again, just answer this: ‘Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.’”

In a parallel way, at the beginning of St. John’s Gospel, Philip finds Nathanael and tells him, “We have found him about whom Moses and the prophets wrote—Jesus the son of Joseph from Nazareth.” But neither understanding nor believing what Philip is telling him, Nathanael responds dismissively: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip wisely doesn’t try to argue the point but instead simply issues the invitation, “Come and see”—much as Eli had simply instructed Samuel to listen to what the Lord had to say.

So, Philip helps prepare Nathanael to meet the Lord, just as Eli once helped prepare Samuel to meet the Lord. In both cases the encounter is life‑changing. Samuel enters upon his vocation as a prophet; Nathanael enters upon his vocation as a disciple. Indeed, some Church traditions have identified Nathanael as St. Bartholomew, one of the Twelve Apostles. And all because Nathanael was willing to take up the invitation to “Come and see,” just as Samuel was willing to say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” 

Taken together, these readings invite us to adopt a posture of openness and receptivity to whatever God wants to say to us now. Sometimes we need the assistance of a trusted advisor, guide, or mentor—as Eli was for Samuel, as Philip was for Nathanael. But most of all, we need to take the time to slow down, put aside our preoccupations and worries, and then say and mean the words, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

This posture is more important than ever amidst the current political divisions in our nation. Confronted with images of people saying and doing outrageous things, it’s all too easy to get caught up in the emotions of the moment in ways that can be harmful to our own souls’ health, never mind the feelings and sensibilities of those around us. I’m not suggesting for one moment that we should overlook or condone public wrongdoing. But over the past couple of weeks, when I’ve found myself getting upset or worked up about something I’ve seen on television or read online, I’ve found it helpful—at least when I’ve had the presence of mind to remember to do this—to sit back, take a deep breath, and say to Jesus, “Lord, please help me to see all this from your point of view. Please help me understand what your love requires of me in this moment.” 

Then, having prayed such a prayer, take the time to be quiet and listen to whatever he might say in response. In this way, we gradually learn to respond in a Christian way to what’s going on around us, rather than getting swept along in the prevailing ideological currents of either the Right or the Left.

In 1939, the spiritual writer Evelyn Underhill told the story of a pastor in the Confessing Church in Germany facing arrest, trial, and imprisonment for his outspoken resistance to Hitler and the Nazi regime. This pastor is said to have remarked: While on the ocean’s surface it’s stormy and dangerous, still, three fathoms down it’s quite calm. He was of course using this underwater metaphor to describe that submerged place of stillness and silence where he encountered God and God’s peace—not as a form of spiritual escapism but precisely to be able to resurface with renewed strength and conviction to continue the struggle.

If we take the time to practice this type of inner listening in moments of outward stress and crisis, then, who knows, we may find ourselves called to some new form of creative discipleship as agents of God’s love, reconciliation, and healing in a divided and suffering world. We may not know in advance what form that call will take, but the good news is that God does know!

Nathanael discovered on approaching Jesus that Jesus already knew him. “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” “Where did you come to know me?” “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Whatever this mysterious exchange actually means—and generations of biblical scholars have spilled gallons of ink trying to figure it out—Nathanael realizes that Jesus knows him as only God can. And so, finally brought to the moment of surrender, he confesses, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel!”

A basic tenet of Christian theological teaching is that God is closer to us even than we are to ourselves, and so knows us better than we can ever know ourselves. As the Psalm that we’ve just prayed together puts it: “Lord, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You trace my journeys and my resting places, and are acquainted with all my ways. Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O Lord, know it altogether.” I can’t help but imagine these verses running through Nathanael’s head as Jesus says to him, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

Secure, then, in the assurance that God knows us, with all our strengths and weaknesses, achievements and failures, opportunities and challenges, before we ever try to know him—and that he’s already called us, long before it even occurs to us to call upon him—we gain the courage to say, with Samuel, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” And then we stand ready, by God’s grace and strength, to do whatever he may ask of us next.

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

January 10, 2021

St. Andrew’s Church, Little Compton, R.I.

Psalm 29; Genesis 1:1-5; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11

Well, it’s been a disturbing week, and I hope everyone’s okay. While I won’t be referring explicitly to recent and ongoing events, I heartily commend the message that the Presiding Bishop posted on Friday, which is available online; and I do think that today’s celebration of the Baptism of Christ—and, by extension, our own baptism—gives us grounds for hope and encouragement in unsettled times.

Today’s juxtaposition of readings is designed to convey the message that Christ’s baptism in the River Jordan signals a new creation. The Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove upon Jesus as he emerges from the waters evokes the mysterious image from Genesis of that same Spirit—the ruach, wind, or breath of God—moving over the primordial waters in the beginning. By submitting to John’s baptism of repentance, Jesus, the sinless one, identifies himself with us in our fallen humanity, subject to sin and death, precisely so that we, through identification with him in our baptism, may rise to eternal life with him as members of God’s new creation.

Notice that in both the old creation and the new creation, God speaks. Not only is something done, but something is said. “In the beginning, God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” 

Psalm 29 echoes this divine speech in the wonderful poetic imagery of a thunderstorm coming in from the sea over the forests and mountains: “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; the Lord us upon the mighty waters.” The psalm uses the phrase “the voice of the Lord” no fewer than seven times: “a powerful voice … a voice of splendor” which “breaks the cedar trees … makes the oak trees writhe … [and] strips the forest bare.” At the Baptism, however, this same voice speaks words of loving affirmation and approval: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Commenting on Christ’s baptism, the fourth-century Church Father Saint Gregory of Nazianzus writes of the Spirit’s descent and the voice from heaven as forms of divine witness: “The Spirit comes to him as an equal, bearing witness to his Godhead. A voice bears witness to him from heaven, his place of origin.” This was a new insight for me this year: at Christ’s Baptism, God bears witness to God! The First and Third Persons of the Holy Trinity bear witness to the Second Person, now incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. Just as in the beginning God said, “Let there be light,” so now God acclaims Christ as the Light of the world.

Following this divine example, we’ve similarly been committed at our baptism to bearing witness to Christ. In a few minutes, we shall be praying the words of today’s Collect: “Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior …”

Two of the promises we make at our baptism take this form: Question: Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior? Answer: I do. Question: Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord? Answer: I do. Then, in the Baptismal Covenant, there follows: Question: Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Answer: I will with God’s help.

“By word and example.” Notice there again the combination of something done and something said. A certain saying is sometimes misattributed to Saint Francis of Assisi: “Preach the Gospel at all times; when necessary, use words.” I hope it doesn’t come as too much of a disappointment to be told that he didn’t really say that. The things he did say had more to do with the preacher’s need to conform his life to his words in order to be credible—which in Francis’s case was certainly true as one of the greatest preachers and holiest saints of the Christian tradition.

The point is simply that in the fulfillment of our baptismal promises, good deeds by themselves aren’t enough. The very personal question that today’s readings invite us to consider is what more we might be doing in our own lives to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ,” and “boldly confess him as Lord and Savior.”

Let me be the first to acknowledge that this is easier said than done! We live in a society that doesn’t really encourage public professions of faith; and in the culture of our own beloved Episcopal Church we sometimes tend to be a bit reticent and reserved about discussing spiritual matters. After all, they’re very personal, and we don’t want to subject our most cherished beliefs, feelings, and experiences to dismissal and ridicule. That’s all very understandable.

Look, by contrast, at the example of the disciples whom Saint Paul encounters in Ephesus in today’s reading from Acts. When he asks them into what they were baptized, they reply, “John’s baptism.” But as John the Baptist himself says in today’s Gospel, “I have baptized you with water, but the one coming after me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” So, when Paul baptizes and lays hands on these Ephesians in the Name of Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes upon them powerfully so that they speak in tongues and prophesy.

But let’s not let that image put us off. Not all Christians are called to speak in tongues and engage in what used to be called “religious enthusiasm.” (I love that phrase!) On the other hand, some are, and it’s not our place to judge them. Part of the richness of life in the Body of Christ is the diversity of gifts to be found in the various parts of the Church. 

The deeper point is that those disciples at Ephesus received the grace to proclaim Christ in their own time in their own way; and we’ve also received the grace to proclaim Christ in our own time in our own way. At our baptism we received the same Holy Spirit who descended upon Jesus at his baptism in the River Jordan, and who came upon those Ephesian disciples at their baptism at the hands of Saint Paul the Apostle. 

Our baptism itself empowers us to fulfill our baptismal promises. We need only ask God to stir up the Spirit’s gifts within us; then we’ll be given the right words to say in precisely those moments when we really need to say them. In this way, God will continue to equip us to keep the covenant we have made, and boldly confess Christ as Lord and Savior. 

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.