I realized that I'm behind on posting a few sermons from this year. This is my most recent, preached at St. Raphael's Episcopal Church, Crossville, Tennessee.
I thought I would try this again: instead of transcribing, I'm posting the audio of the sermon. For me, transcribing involves a good deal of "cleaning up." With the audio file, you'll hear what I said, clumsy spots and all. It will require you to download it to play it.
So, if you want to hear what I shared, you can link here.
Some of you know that I’ve recently had surgery. News is good, However, this blog has been primarily professional, not personal. With that in mind, I started a new blog, Chaplain on the Other Side of the Rail.
The problem has been that Facebook has a problem with the url and title for the blog. I still don’t know what the problem is. So, if you’re looking for the blog on my experience as a patient, that’s where to find it. I hope this helps. Let me know.
I'm trying something a little different. Usually, when post a sermon I'm posting the transcript. This time I thought I would add something different and post the audio of the sermon itself. I can come back and add the transcript, but I wanted to try this. It is going to require you to download it to listen. Let me know what you think.
Sermon for Advent 4, Year A, December 18, 2022: listen here.
For those not inclined to listen, the transcript is below:
Most of you have heard at one point or another, sometimes when I'm preparing for a sermon, a song comes to me This time it was not a song, it was a poem from my childhood. And I don't know how many of you, probably most of you, are aware that in addition to the stories of Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne wrote a number of wonderful poems for children. And as I was preparing for the sermon, this came to me.
King John was not a good man. He had his little ways,
and sometimes no one spoke to him for days and days and days.
And when men came across him when walking in the town,
gave him a supercilious stare.
or passed with noses in the air.
and bad King John stood dumbly there,
blushing beneath his crown.
King John was not a good man, and no good friends had he,
he stayed in every afternoon, but no one came to tea.
And roundabout December, the cards upon his shelf,
which wished him lots of Christmas cheer.
and fortune in the coming year.
were never from his near and dear,
but only from himself.
Those are the opening stanzas of "King John's Christmas" by Milne.
We were talking about the lessons, my wife and I, and noting that this is that one kind of odd Fourth Advent. In Fourth Advent, we begin to turn to talking about the Incarnation. And in the second year of a three year cycle, Year B, and in the third year, Year C, we're in Luke. It's either the Annunciation to the blessed virgin or it's the Visitation. But Matthew does have his stories of the Incarnation. And so inYear A we get Matthew, and we get the story of Joseph.
My wife had run across a meme on Twitter saying, “Of all the people talking about Christian manhood, I wonder how different it would be if they had really taken their model from Joseph.” So this kicked me back to a Milne’s poem, “King John was not a good man,” because King Ahaz was not a good man.
We get a piece of Ahaz’s story today, but not the be most important piece. And in fact, this is one of those where it would make a whole lot more sense if they'd given you more verses upfront. Isaiah has a reason that he goes to talk to Ahaz, and it is this, (this is from earlier in chapter seven of Isaiah).
“In the days of Ahaz, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, King Rezin of Arum and King Pika, son of Remeliah of Israel, went up to attack Jerusalem, but could not mount an attack against it. When the house of David heard that Aram had allied itself with Ephraim, the heart of Ahaz, and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind. Then the Lord said to Isaiah, go and meet Ahaz.”
And that's what he goes to see Ahaz about. And that is why he says to Ahaz, “It shall not stand. It shall not come to pass.” And it’s that reason that he said, “Look, Ahaz, trust God. Ask a sign. Ask a sign that is as high as the top of heaven, is as low as the pit of hell. Ask a sign.” And Ahaz said, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I I can't test the Lord.”
There's a problem with this. See, we think on the first hand that this is a wonderfully pious and humble moment. It's not. If you wanna get the rest of the story of Ahaz, you gotta go to the 16th chapter of Second Kings. And what you find out in the 16th chapter of Second Kings is why he didn't want to hear from Isaiah. See, Ahaz already had a plan. He had his own plan.
Broader context: the reason that Pika and Rezin had gone to war was that they wanted to rebel or at least put up a buffer against the Assyrians. And they wanted Judah to join them, or to be unable to come at them from behind; one way or another. So they wanted to take Judah first, put up their own, um, put up their own puppet king so that they could add Judas armies to their own, or at least not have a potential enemy at their back when they go up against Assyria. This is why Isaiah goes to Ahaz.
But Ahaz had his own plan, and his own plan is laid out in the 16th chapter of Second Kings, “Ahaz sent messengers to King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Arum and from the hand of the king of Israel who are attacking me.”
That puts a whole different light on it. Ahaz had a plan and it had nothing to do with trusting God. It was perhaps expedient militarily, politically: ask the great power and say, “Listen, they're coming against you, but I'm not against you. When you come against them, come and save me from them.” And he said, “I will be your vassal.” And what did he do to demonstrate that he would be the vassal? “Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the House of the Lord and the treasures of the king's house, and sent a present to the king of Assyria.” Worse,
When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet with King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. King Ahaz sent to the priest of Uriah, a model of the altar and its pattern exact in all its details. Uriah built the altar in accordance with all the king Ahaz had sent from Damascus. When the king came from Damascus, the king drew near to that altar, went up on it, offered his burnt offering and his grain offering, poured out his drink offering and dashed the blood of his offerings of wellbeing against that altar. The bronze altar that was before the Lord he removed from the front of the house, from the place between his altar and the house of the Lord and put it on the north side of his altar.
Ahaz did not want to hear from Isaiah because he had a plan, and his plan had nothing to do with trusting in the Lord. And in fact, having executed his plan, he did what was again, politically and militarily expedient. He appeased Assyria’s gods; which is why he is remembered as one of the worst kings in the Books of kings, in the Books of Chronicles, one of those who did not do as the Lord had commanded,He did not want to hear from Isaiah.
And then Isaiah does this. He said, “Doesn't matter, you can pretend to be pious. I see through it and you are about to have a sign. Anyway, there is a young woman there. She is pregnant, she is going to have a child, and she is going to bring peace. That child is going to bring peace to Israel. And before that child is eating solid food and able to taste well, and is able to understand, if not respond to the word no, (I mean, we all know how two year olds are about the word no.) these kings that you're so afraid of, they'll be gone.”
Now it's interesting that, this child was out there. We don't have a concrete identification of who this child is, but this child is going to demonstrate despite Ahaz, despite Ahaz as apostasy, that God can be, will be with Israel, Emmanuel. And it is interesting that, the next child born in the Royal House, the child of Ahaz’s Queen Abi, was Hezekiah. And Hezekiah in the 17th chapter of Second Kings is hailed as one of the great kings of Israel who restores the temple, who restores the worship of the Lord, who moves that abomination of an altar out and cleans up the temple and remembers what God called for, and had peace in his reign. His wasn't a perfect reign. He sinned some and he had to do some penitent things. But in his reign, God was with Israel and there was peace.
But Ahaz: Ahaz was not a good man, which is why I am so struck at the direct relation that Matthew puts between Ahaz and Joseph. He actually creates it in a couple of different ways. First, before we get to the Christmas story in Matthew, in Matthew we get the genealogy, the genealogy that demonstrates that Joseph is of the house of David. And so Jesus will be understood to be of the House of David, even though Jesus' father is through the Holy Spirit. And guess who is in the lineage of David, whether we like him or not, but Ahaz. So there is that connection of Joseph to Ahaz.
There is another that we will come to. It is this reference to Emmanuel and who this new child will be.
But we know that Joseph is a good man. First of all, Matthew tells us that Joseph was a righteous man, but beyond being a righteous man, because righteousness can have some overtones that are not always that pleasant…
You know, I used to meet with people and, and I would say, how are you doing? And they would give a very common response: “I’m upright and taking nourishment.” We've all heard that. And I would stand there in my clericals and say, “I never say upright. In my business that has connotations I haven't always lived up to.”
But Joseph was a righteous man. Beyond that, by our standards, we would say Joseph was a good man, because he's engaged, he's betrothed, and Mary's pregnant. The obvious thought is that she has been unfaithful and she is pregnant by some man she is not married to. And Joseph would have every right to publicly disgrace her, to bring community shame upon her. But Joseph is a good man, unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planning to send her home quietly, break the marriage contract, but not put Mary through more. Joseph is a good man.
And here is the piece that both connects and discriminates Joseph from Ahaz: because as he's about to do this, God comes to Joseph in a dream. But pretty much as God had sent Isaiah to Ahaz who said, “No,” in the dream Joseph hears, “This is of God. Trust in God. This child will be again God with us and will be for the salvation of Israel. To which point you will name him Joshua, Yeshua, ‘The Lord is salvation.’” And Joseph was a good man, and he believed.
Ahaz was not a good man, and he did not want to believe; he had his own plan. Joseph was a good man. We knew he was righteous, and we knew he was kind. And now we know he is faithful because he bought into God's plan, and he took for his own this child. And although we don't have a lot about Joseph in the rest of the Gospels, what we do have is that he raised a good boy. He was a faithful father to this child that was not his. Joseph was a good man.
Now, I won't go through the rest of the poem of King John's Christmas. It's actually a little long for this setting.I will encourage you to read it because not only does this person who's not a good man actually end up having Christmas, it is entirely by grace. And so it is that Ahaz not willing to trust in grace was not a good man. And Joseph willing to trust in grace showed himself a good man. And in this time, when we look again to recognize God with us, let us remember not only the Blessed Mother, but also Joseph and what that kind of goodness can mean in a world so torn.
This sermon, or something like it, was preached November 13, 2022, at St. Raphael's Episcopal Church, Crossville, Tennessee.
So, “All scripture is for your learning.” You are to “read mark, learn and inwardly digest;” and they give us these lessons. I think here there are some of the most mis-digested texts in Scripture. But one of the things that caught me as reading through this - can’t imagine why - “They asked him, ‘Teacher, when will this be and what will the sign that this is about to take place?’ And he said, ‘Beware, Do not that you are not let astray; for many will come in my name and say ‘I am he,’ and ‘the time is near.’
And the most interesting memory popped up in my head. A few of you know that in the summer of 1980, Bishop Sanders assigned to St. Rafael's Mission Station in Crossville this recently graduated, not yet ordained seminarian to be the lay minister in charge. He went on to do hospital chaplaincy and a lot of other stuff. Yes, I was here all those years ago; and there used to be a used bookstore in the strip mall that now has the Gondola - it’s not there anymore. And I was in there one day looking through the piles of books and I ran across a book. I don't remember exactly what the title was, but the subtitle was “Why God Sent Elvis to Earth, What he had to say to us, And When He Will Return.”
Now this had an odd resonance for me because one of my lesser claims to fame is that Elvis is my seventh cousin twice removed. I’m always happy to share that because that's a relationship such that everybody knows there's no money involved. And I also know how Elvis died.
So here we are, Elvis - St. Elvis. Now, I have lived in Memphis and I have been to Graceland. And let me tell you, when you go to Graceland, you may see some things that strike you as odd. They have rearranged it, but when I went to Graceland, they had three entire display panels talking about all that Elvis did to fight in the war on drugs. And I was with a couple of other people and I said, “Do not laugh. There are true believers here and they will hurt you.”
So, yeah, there are those in the oddest of places who will say, or someone will say about someone, “I am he.” This is one we hear all the time. I can remember growing up and watching, and even as an adult watching on Sunday morning, “The World Tomorrow” with Herbert W. Armstrong and it's all apocalyptic and it's all pretending to - well I shouldn't say pretending, they actually believe it - but with this idea that you can predict the end of the world. What I really liked was that they had the most wonderful graphics, the most wonderful images of those monsters. They're beautiful art in a kind of way.
And yet Jesus says, “Do not be led astray.” This is a passage that is in all the Synoptics at this point, almost at the end of the church here - because next Sunday is the last Sunday of the church year - we get to what is usually referred to as the Little Apocalypse. There's something like this in Matthew and Mark and Luke. We don't know the circumstances under which Jesus said these things. Really we think, scholars think, that they took on a particular resonance because the written versions that we have of the Gospels probably did not come together until around 65 AD. Depending on who you ask, Mark is first and Matthew is the expanded edition, the director's cut. Or Matthew is first, and Mark is the Reader's Digest Condensed Version. But we think they came together around 65 or a little after; and then Luke was 70 or a little after, which is significant because this was after the Temple was torn down. And for this Christian community that was still in Jerusalem - there was persecution, you see it recorded in Acts but there were still still Christians around - who were still at that point thinking of themselves as Messianic Jews. It's not a term they would've used, but they were still worshiping in the Temple. And then the Romans come in and the Temple is desecrated, the walls are torn down and they say, “Whoa! Jesus had something to say about this!” And so they are looking for the end times.
And of course the end times always, always sound dreadful; because, after all, major turnover is dreadful. Anything that uproots what we know and are used to feels uncomfortable, even threatening. And so Jesus said, “Yeah, these things will happen. And guess what? You've got a while to wait.”
Now, remember that in all of the Synoptics he also says, “You don't get to know the time.” That's the problem with folks who are trying to read mark, learn and inwardly digest the scriptures as if they could figure out a calendar. Jesus said, “You don't get to know the time. You get to know there's going to be trouble. You get to know this being a Christian is not going to be the easiest and most comfortable thing. You get to know that there are going to be some people that don't like you being a Christian;” or, I guess now that we live in a Christianized culture, we live with a lot of people who don't like how other people go about being Christian. You know, I grew up in Knoxville and I remember people who would encounter you interesting encounters at West Town Mall when it was still a thing and and they would say, “Are you Christian or are you Catholic?” So you know people who are uncomfortable with how other people go about being Christian; and sometimes the people who most claim to be persecuted really seem to want to use it as a justification to challenge others.
But Jesus says, “Do not go after them, as awful as things may be. Do not go after them. Wait on me because you don't get to know.”
Which gets us to Second Thessalonians. Now second Thessalonians also has one of these really badly digested passages in it: “For when we were with you, I gave you this command. Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” Now there are places in Paul when Paul really sounds rather un-Jesus-like, and this is one of the worst. Jesus said, “Give to anybody that begs of you.” Period. Jesus spent his time feeding and healing and he didn't ask whether they deserved it. And we've known in our own time people, happily few people in churches, but people who wanted to use that and say, “See these people are undeserving. They're not putting up enough effort to help themselves;” usually without any reflection about what opportunity or capacity they have to participate. Somehow this is less about what it means to be meaningfully involved in the Christian life and more about, “That’s fine, but I don't want 'em to have my money.”
Paul is talking to the Thessalonians who are a long way past waiting, probably not to the destruction of the temple - Paul’s earlier than the Gospels - but they had kind of expected something to happen on the Monday after the Resurrection, and it's now been decades. And so Paul is in encouraging them all the way through Second Thessalonians and and saying, “You guys are doing a good job” outside of this passage. He spends a good deal of time saying, “Look at the ministries you have. Look at how well you have lived in faith. Look at how well you have sustained it in the face of everything else.”
“But,” he said, “I've heard some of you are living in Idleness.” Well, at least hopefully he didn't mean retirement. That “idleness” is interesting. It's an odd word according to the scholars I read. It's an odd word in Greek. It doesn't really mean sitting around. It means disorganized, it means disorderly. When you say disorganized and disorderly to me in context of what it means to live the Christian life, I fall back to the concept of Rule. This is “unregulated,” and I think of the Rule. I am an Associate of the Order of the Holy Cross, a Benedictine monastic order for men in the Episcopal Church. I have my own Rule. I confess I'm not the best at keeping my own rule. The Daughters of the King have a Rule; and I wonder if the word here is not better understood as “irregular,” not “sitting around wasting time.”
I think it's significant that in here he's talking to believers, he's not talking to the world. And Jesus in this Gospel lesson, when he talks about what's going to happen, the “they,”, it's believers. So we are clearly focused on how we as believers live the Christian life. And scholars debate: are these Christians who said, “We still believe that next Thursday it's going to happen and we might as well just sit and wait?” That's possible. I don't know about anybody else - I'm sure I was particularly attentive to it because I think it happened while I was in seminary -I remember there was a small apocalyptic congregation out in Arkansas, and they decided that the time was coming. And families went out dressed in white robes, adults and children, and sat on the roofs of their houses waiting for it to happen. And they sat there and they sat there and they sat there, until the truant officer came and showed up to wonder why the kids weren't in school. So we don't know if that's a possibility.
The other possibility is that other evangelists had come through, other ministers following in Paul's tradition and they were acting somehow privileged. They were acting somehow, “Well I have the Word, you take care of me.” We don't know for sure who Paul was unhappy about, but we are pretty sure this was not simply Paul saying, “Look, I was sewing tents while I was in Thessalonica and these other people, you know, they ought to be out doing trade. They ought to be out making pottery. They ought to be out working.”
No, this is about believers and believing, and what it means to live as a believer. So what does it mean to live as a believer? And I found myself thinking that we are at the end of Luke; because starting with Advent, we get back into Matthew again. And thinking about the beginning of Jesus's ministry in Luke because it clarifies both ends of this. It clarifies what Paul may be talking about and what Jesus certainly is talking about, about who to follow and who not to follow. Remember that wonderful and powerful passage in the Fourth Chapter? Jesus is in the synagogue. They hand him the scroll. He reads from Isaiah: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has sent me to preach release of captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, the year of the Lord's favor: God demonstrating goodness.” And Jesus said, “Now you're seeing that be fulfilled:” Jesus demonstrating God's will, which in Jesus' ministry is about proclamation and actual healing; is about proclamation and actual feeding; is about proclamation and actual care for the poor; is about proclamation and actually showing in the world by how he lived, that God was indeed at hand.
And you've heard from me and others, as we say that's Jesus's ministry. And if we're gonna claim to be Jesus, literally the Body of Jesus now present, that's our ministry. And suddenly it becomes clear what we at least can think about, about who to follow when they say, “I’m with Jesus.” Well, are they with Jesus in that? When people say, “I am working within as a part of the Christian community,” are they working with Jesus at that? When people talk about what it means to live as a member of the body of Christ, then that means we are embracing some portion, none of us totally, but some portion of that ministry of Christ; and that ministry of Christ, at least as Luke understood it, was all about that kind of service and care, and demonstrating God's loving and caring presence in the world.
Now, before you leave today, we're going to get to the closing prayer. Pay attention because it says, “And now Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do,” which is “to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.” That is, in some sense or another, a life that is not idle and not disorderly, but as each of us is called, as each of us structures what each of us understands “Christian” to be, to follow the Rule, to stick with the path; knowing that, yeah, the time will come when all things are torn down, and it may be next Thursday, and it may be long after all of us are resting. In the meantime, we are called to remember who Jesus was, and therefore who we are called to be. And as Paul said, “Do not become weary in doing what is right.”
I think most folks who have seen this blog know that it began reflecting on matters beyond chaplaincy. That’s why, among others things, I have written many posts about General Convention. General Convention has always been important to me as an Episcopalian (I know that may seem obvious, but I bet we all know enough Episcopalians who don’t think about General Convention), and especially as a wonk. I appreciate that the ecclesiology expressed in the Episcopal Church considers that the Holy Spirit moves in each person, and so we hear the Holy Spirit most clearly when the greatest number of us are thinking together. That is the value of General Convention: more than 1,000 folks are gathered to share how they’re hearing the Spirit and lead the Episcopal Church accordingly.
With that in mind, there is a great opportunity available to all of us this year. The 80th General Convention was delayed a year by the pandemic, and will gather this summer. That also allowed for time for an unexpected chance for so many to participate. From the Episcopal News Service: “General Convention committees to welcome public to first-ever online legislative hearings.”
If you’ve never been to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church (and I think every Episcopalian should attend, even if only as a Visitor -yes, that’s an official status - and only for a day or two), you may not be aware how matters are decided in General Convention. It looks an awful lot like legislative meetings of the United States or of the various states. Things are voted on. And like those other legislative bodies, a lot of the important work happens in committees. It’s really in the committees that legislation is considered and shaped, and, especially, that testimony is heard.
In General Convention, any person registered (including Visitors and Exhibitors, another real status) can testify before a Committee, as time allows. Granted, in meetings in person Deputies and Bishops get the first chance to testify, because they may be from other committees, and so need to get back to that work. However, anyone else can put a word in. Testifying by individuals adds information and often a lot of reality and emotional power to the consideration and shaping of a resolution. A resolution is less abstract when you hear how real people are affected by the issues addressed.
This year at least some committees are meeting ahead of Convention, and meeting online. That will give opportunities for testimony in the Zoom meetings, and that might allow testimony from many of us who wouldn’t otherwise be involved in Convention. As a chaplain I think that’s a great opportunity. We have perspectives on how issues affect people who are receiving healthcare or working in healthcare institutions, perspectives that aren’t heard that often. That’s not to suggest our parish-based clergy and lay siblings wouldn’t care, but that we live in an environment they don’t see every day.
So, ready the article carefully to see how you might participate. Then, go the General Convention Virtual Binder. You can find all the resolutions currently received. For background on the A resolutions (remember, there are A, B, C, and D resolutions, but for this purpose the differences aren’t important), check out the Reports to General Convention, also known as the Blue Book. A few meetings will have happened before you see this, but many more will be coming. You can find the schedule here. And remember to check back regularly on both resolutions and committee meetings. Resolutions will be coming in right up to the first days of Convention; and while you might not have an opportunity to participate in Zoom testimony, you will certainly have an opportunity to let your own bishop and Deputies know what you think. You can also find the lists of committee members here, and so perhaps share perspectives with a bishop or Deputy you know. Oh, and if you don't know who's in your own diocesan deputation (and every one of us who's endorsed has a diocesan connection) you can find that out here.
This really is an important opportunity. Please take the time to read the article, and then explore your own innate wonkiness to help shape the positions and direction of the Episcopal Church
