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MY FAVORITE THINGS

 The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost
November 17, 2024

Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh) … let us approach with a true heart, in full assurance of faith.  (Hebrews 10:19ff)

 Today’s readings from the Letter to the Hebrews and the Gospel of Mark have me thinking of a song from The Sound of Music.  Why?  Well, if you hang with me for a few moments, I’ll tell you why.  As many of you know, The Sound of Music is the story of a young, aspiring nun named Maria who, instead of the cloistered life, becomes the governess in a houseful of seven children.  The show was first a Broadway musical, then in 1965 a Hollywood hit that broke all sorts of box office records.  Julie Andrews, who stars as Maria, often bursts spontaneously into song, as people in musicals are inclined to do.  In one of the songs, Maria sings about her favorite things.  The list includes raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles, warm woolen mittens, and brown paper packages tied up in strings.  These are just a few of her favorite things. 

Lo and behold, through many years of parenthood, my two sons have compiled a list for me – not of my favorite things, but of things I have denounced as unwelcome intrusions into my otherwise happy, cheerful life.  What things?  These are a few of my least favorite things: The Los Angeles Dodgers, cilantro, the over and misused word “iconic,” going by my middle name, non-dishwasher safe kitchen ware, traffic circles, and one more – valet parking.  No matter where I am, I just never want to hand over my car keys to some teenager named Todd.  What is more, Todd is going to expect a sizable tip for doing something I didn’t want him to do in the first place.  There you have it: a few of my least favorite things.  And in case you were wondering, my sons do not have permission to reveal anything else on the list, so don’t ask them at coffee hour. 

In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark (13:1-8), the disciples of Jesus talked about the Jerusalem temple as if it topped the list of their favorite things.  “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” they said.  Obviously, we don’t have any photographs of the temple, but various written sources describe it as enormous.  It sat atop Mt. Moriah, and was by far the largest building in the region, with stones measuring 40-feet long, 12-feet high, and 18-feet wide.  By the time of Jesus it had taken forty years to build and they still weren’t finished.  But the temple was not only big, it was beautiful, almost blindingly so.  The historian Josephus writes that much of the exterior was clad in gold plates so that the rays of the rising sun reflected off it with dazzling intensity.  To say that the temple had an emotional hold on the Jews would be a vast understatement.  It was the focal point of their identity, even the dwelling place of God on earth. 

Nevertheless, Jesus foresaw the worst of times ahead for the temple.  “Do you see these great buildings?  Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down,” is what he said.  Jesus’ prediction of the temple’s impending destruction was a lament over the favorite building of all the Jews.  Why would he say it?  Perhaps he speaking politically, gauging the revolutionary foment in Jerusalem, and realizing it was headed towards a suicidal rebellion against Rome, the occupying power.  Or perhaps he was speaking theologically, understanding that the offering of himself on the cross he saw looming before him would be the perfect sacrifice for the whole world, rendering the temple sacrifices redundant.  We heard echoes of these latter thoughts in today’s reading from Hebrews (10:11-25).  Whoever it was who wrote Hebrews also had concerns about the temple’s viability.  Every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins, is what the author wrote.  In other words, the rituals of the temple were empty and futile.  The blood of bulls and goats could not atone for sins.  Only the offering of Jesus could bring peace with God. 

In either case, whether the gloomy prediction about the temple was politically or theologically motivated, Jesus’ words proved to be true.  Mark 13 is often called “the little Apocalypse” because it purports to unveil the things that were to come.  Indeed, in AD 70, approximately 40 years after Jesus spoke, the Romans sent troops with catapults and siege engines to retake and ransack the city.  Nation rose up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, but it was never a fair fight.  Nowhere in Jerusalem was safe, but especially not the temple.  The Romans set the temple ablaze with a fire so big that Josephus compared Mt. Moriah to an erupting volcano.  Then it was all gone.  If nothing else, it was a lesson for the Jews not to put their trust in a building made with hands, but only in the true and living God. 

So here we are, two-thousand years after Jesus warned that not one stone of the temple would be left on top of another.  He warned not to put our trust in a building made with hands.  What has been a major focus of our parish life in the past year?  It has been making sure that the stones of this temple – of this church – stay on top of each other.  It is striving to prevent from happening here what happened there.  To this end we raised over $5 million last spring.  Today, I am pleased to report that we can all see progress.  In fact, with the plastic tenting down, we even have an unveiling of sorts.  You can look inside the scaffolding and see what has been our own little apocalypse: destruction, yes, but also glimmers of what is to come. 

What is coming is good news.  By next Sunday, all the interior scaffolding that you see will be gone, except for a remnant up against the south wall itself.  The south aisle will be clear for all the important Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas gatherings that will fill the church in the weeks to come.  Yes, at he pageant on Christmas Eve, the villagers with their torches, including the infamous Jeanette and Isabella, will hurry and run to the manger along the same route they take every year. 

Now for the challenging news about the south aisle project.  To quote Winston Churchill: “Now this is not the end.  It is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”  Beginning in 2025, our construction team will be staging the next critical phases of the work, and filing important documents with Landmarks Preservation and the Department of Buildings.  These things take time, I’m told.  Also, we will conduct what is called a “make safe survey,” by which workers on lifts will handle every exterior stone that protrudes over public spaces to assure than none are thrown down.  Then, immediately after Easter, some iteration of the scaffolding that you see now will return.  We will remove four stained-glass windows and send them off to a studio for a complete restoration, because they and the stone tracery supporting them were a source of water infiltration.  If all goes well, the stained-glass windows will be back in place – wait for it – a year from now.  No doubt they will shine with dazzling intensity. 

Understand, the south aisle project was supposed to be finished last month, not next fall.  But when we opened this brown paper package tied up with string, what we found inside was a water-logged sponge.  You know those silver white winters that melt into spring?  Well, the water goes somewhere.  Over the past few weeks I have been absorbing the reality of how long it is going to take, and how many other projects we were hoping to do.  Believe me, I have been tempted to instruct my sons to add the south aisle to the list of my least favorite things.  If Rogers and Hammerstein were to set it to song, the lyrics might include:

 “Raindrops on marble, and windows in pieces; 
Plaster dissolving, the toll never ceases.” 

No, I will not sing it, because preachers who burst spontaneously into song in the middle of their sermons happen to be another entry on my list of least favorite things. 

Am I losing heart?  No, we have come too far over the years to sink into despair now.  Besides, Jesus implied that difficult times are the birth pangs preceding new life.  What is more, the author of Hebrews writes, Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh) … let us approach with a true heart, in full assurance of faith.  The author turns the corner from futility to purpose, from fear to confidence, from sin to forgiveness, and invites us to come along on the new and living way.  True, the old temple and its former function are gone.  No longer do we throng the temple in order to be forgiven.  The new and living way is to gather here because God in Christ has already forgiven us.  It is accomplished.  Note the earthy components of the new way: the body and blood of Jesus, the curtain that he opens for us, a sanctuary that we can approach, and the importance of meeting together in a sacred space. 

We live in a sacramental universe, in which every common, earthy thing can open a doorway to God.  Not to belabor the song, but raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens are iconic in the true sense of the word.  They become gateways to heaven.  They open windows, they pull back the curtain, they reveal the presence and love of God, and even declare God’s glory.  Stained glass and stone, wood and plaster, fabric and flowers also sing the praises of God for those who train their ears to listen.  In The Sound of Music, Maria sings: “When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I’m feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don’t feel so bad.” 

Let me tell you about a favorite thing I remember whenever the building challenges at Grace Church tempt me to feel sad.  Back in 2015 our choristers sang a concert tour in France, and one of the venues was Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  It was amazing.  Our choristers did more than hold their own in that ancient and holy place.  Their voices soared, and hundreds of tourists stopped their milling about and listened.  After the concert I was outside waiting for them in the plaza in front of the cathedral.  I looked up at the great west towers, the rose window, and the blue sky.  I remember thinking that someone 800 years ago, standing right where I was, would have seen exactly the same glorious sight.  The continuity with souls long dead was moving and meaningful.  Notre Dame Cathedral became one of my favorite things. 

Then four years later came the terrible fire that consumed the cathedral’s roof, brought the central spire crashing to earth, and filled the Parisian sky with smoke.  Only by the genius of medieval architects and the heroics of modern firefighters was the cathedral not entirely lost.  But it came close.  Nevertheless, the people of France and supporters around the world did not lose heart.  The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, declared that they would restore Notre Dame to its former glory within five years.  They raised $900 million.  Architects, engineers, and artists swarmed the place, and set themselves to the task.  Now the cathedral is ready to open its doors again to the public on December 7^th of this year.  Once again the stained glass and stone, the wood and the nails, the bread and the wine, the choirs and the organ, and all the common things of earth that constitute Notre Dame will become sacramental.  They will declare the glory of God, and show forth the handiwork of God’s people. 

I like to think that the same Spirit of God that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ has been stirring the hearts of the people raising Notre Dame out of the ashes.  It is the same Spirit of God at work in us, the people of Grace Church, as we seek to make new that which has grown old.  We press on because Grace Church, and all that composes it, is one of our favorite things.  A verse from the majestic hymn (360) that began our service says it well:

Hallowed this dwelling, where the Lord abideth,
This is none other than the gate of heaven;
Strangers and pilgrims, seeking homes eternal,
Pass through its portals. 

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BLESSED ARE THE GIVERS

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
All Saints’ Sunday + November 3, 2024

Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.  Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”  (Matthew 5:7-9) 

The official name of today on the church calendar is All Saints’ Sunday.  But here in Grace Church it is also Pledge Sunday, as you might have guessed by the tastefully arranged brochures in your pews.  Also, today is the Sunday before Election Day, a uniquely anxious time for the whole country.  Throughout this week, as I’ve been thinking and praying about what to say that might do justice to all these themes, I remembered a story I’ve told you before from one of my visits to Iceland.  Iceland, as you know, is an island nation in the north Atlantic.  It is full of natural wonders, many of them waterfalls. 

One waterfall in particular has a fascinating legend behind its name.  The year was approximately 1000 AD, and Iceland was on the brink of civil war.  Those who followed the old Norse gods had different laws and customs than those who followed the newer faith taking root in the land: Christianity.  The Law Speakers of the two factions – Hallur the Christian and Thorgeir the pagan – were both wise old men who knew that the people needed to unite, if for no other reason than to fend off Viking raids.  To make a long story short, Hallur the Christian voluntarily resigned his position and placed the decision in the hands of Thorgeir the pagan.  The question was this: should the land be Christian or continue in the ways of the Norse gods? 

Surprisingly, after a period of meditation and consulting the signs, Thorgeir decided for Christianity.  Everyone should turn to Jesus Christ, and those not already baptized should submit to the rite at their earliest opportunity.  Thorgeir also practiced the art of compromise, allowing certain pagan customs to continue, so long as their adherents did so privately.  But Thorgeir himself, who was a pagan priest, would become a Christian through and through.  He went down into the water of baptism, and arose as a follower of Jesus.  Then, Thorgeir took all the symbols of his pagan practice, including statues of the Norse gods, and threw them over the thunderous falls.  In time the falls came to be known as Godafoss, which being interpreted means, “Waterfall of the gods.” 

I don’t know if Hallur or Thorgeir ever made it onto the Icelandic calendar of saints, but if not, they should both be there.  They were saints.  Each one in his own way laid down his life for the good of others.  Who are the saints?  In today’s reading from the mysterious Book of Ecclesiasticus (44:1ff), otherwise known as Sirach, the writer encourages us to sing the praises of famous people who ruled in their kingdoms.  They gave counsel because they were intelligent.  They spoke in prophetic oracles.  They were wise in their words of instruction.  They were rich people endowed with resources.  They composed musical tunes and put verses in writing.  If you’re not overly fond of Sirach’s list of saints, take heart.  Ecclesiasticus didn’t make the cut into the Old Testament.  It’s in the intertestamental books called the Apocrypha. 

Besides, we’ve heard in the Gospel of Matthew (5:1-12) how Jesus sang the praises of another sort: the meek, the righteous, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers.  Let’s not forget the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the persecuted, and the reviled who can rejoice and be glad because their reward in heaven is great.  Blessed are they.  Yes, but it all seems to play into the popular conception we have of saints: that they are inaccessible figures with spiritual powers and abilities far beyond the reach of mere mortals. 

Well, even though we feebly struggle, the purpose of today is to remind us that sainthood is not out of our reach.  The saints of God are just folk like you and me, proclaims the hymn.  You can meet them anywhere.  The New Testament identifies any Christian who is striving after Jesus to be a saint.  The list of names that we publish for All Saints’ is generated by all of us – the people of Grace Church.  It includes the names of those who gave of themselves for us.  They were not perfect people, but they laid down their lives – some a little bit at a time, others all at once – and the light of Christ shone through them.  For this reason we light candles in their honor today, trusting that life in Christ is eternal, and love is immortal.  Life in Christ begins with baptism, as it did long ago for Thorgeir, and today for Georgina and Mila.  What is more, when the rest of us chime in with the Baptismal Covenant, what we are saying is that we mean to continue our journey to sainthood.  We mean to be saints too, even resembling Jesus. 

Last Thursday night when the nearby Halloween parade was in full swing, I thought I would take a little walk for a glimpse of what was happening.  I did not see anyone resembling Jesus, as in wearing a Jesus costume.  But you’ll never guess who I did see.  I saw Herman Munster from the classic 1960s TV series.  That’s right, not Frankenstein, but a big guy in a Herman Munster costume.  The sight of Herman Munster got me to thinking about, well, Herman Munster, and one of my favorite scenes in all of TV history.  The Munsters decide that their niece, Marilyn, needs a car.  So Herman goes to a used car lot called Fair Deal Dan, and meets Dan.  Dan deftly guides Herman to an old convertible, but lets him know it isn’t available.  Cary Grant wants it.  To make a long story short, Herman shrewdly argues himself into the car, gives up all his money, and drives off the lot with a clunker.[1] 

Why, on All Saints’ Sunday, am I telling you about Fair Deal Dan, the used-car salesman?  Perhaps because my assignment today is to sell you on some ideas that the world might judge to be clunkers.  You might go so far as to call me Fair Deal Don.  The first clunker of an idea might be sainthood itself.  Lay down your life?  Blessed are the reviled, the persecuted, and those who mourn?  It doesn’t sound like much fun.  Indeed, Billy Joel sings, “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, because sinners are much more fun.  You know that only the good die young.”  Life is short, and a nagging notion troubles us: that striving after sainthood may result only in missing the party before it’s lights out.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great?  It sounds a bit suspicious to me. 

The second idea that may come straight from Fair Deal Dan’s used-car lot is the life of giving and sharing.  Yes, I am trying to sell you on generosity.  The fear on this front is that we live in a closed system, where one person’s gain must come at another person’s loss.  If I give something away, it simply means that someone else now has it, and I do not.  Yet every Sunday, before passing around the offering plates, we remember the words of Jesus, how he said “it is more blessed to give than to receive.”  Are the words true, or is Fair Deal Don just trying to unload a clunker on you? 

Obviously, we are making the slight pivot here from celebrating the saints to launching the 2025 Annual Campaign for Grace Church.  Have I got a deal for you: make a pledge, be a saint!  To make the pitch I could spend time talking about what your pledges pay for: the ministries of Grace Church.  I love talking about the ministries of Grace Church because, in all modesty, I think we are responding to the call of Christ.  We are living, teaching, celebrating, and sharing the Christian faith.  It happens when a small group gathers to discuss a difficult Biblical passage and awakens to the Spirit of Jesus in their midst.  It happens when a chorister learns the words and the notes of a great sacred anthem, and through it steps into a thin place in the veil between heaven and earth.  It happens when a person on the margins comes to the Red Door Place and enjoys a hot meal prepared by Grace Church parishioners.  It happens anytime anyone comes through the Broadway door and finds peace.  Our annual giving supports all this and more. 

Lest you think that the annual campaign is all about blessing the budget of Grace Church, let me be clear: it is about much, much more than the budget.  I believe that the pledge campaign first blesses you and me, the givers.  It comes as an annual opportunity to learn the counter-intuitive joy of giving.  The first parish I served after seminary is called Christ Church Cranbrook, in Bloomfield Hills, MI.  The building is a great, gothic structure that was built entirely from the gift of one man, George Booth.  Booth was a wealthy Detroit industrialist whose personal motto was:

 The only way to have is to give. 
The only way to keep is to share. 
And the only thing worth finding is opportunity. 

 Booth’s credo has always struck me as a beautiful summary of the paradox at the heart of Christian living.  It is more blessed to give than to receive.  I’ve discovered it to be true myself: the more I give, the more I seem to have, and the less anxious I am.  Conversely, the more I strive after earthly treasures and cling to possessions, the less I seem to have, the more I seem to need, and the more anxious I become.  The words of Jesus are counter-intuitive, and they are paradoxical, and they are true.  The pledge campaign is an opportunity to find out for ourselves: to have life more abundantly precisely by giving some of it away and sharing it.  It is the opportunity to be a saint. 

Let me tell you about a time when I learned a counter-intuitive lesson about giving and receiving.  Years ago my two sons, James and Luke, and I would enjoy going to the East River Fields for batting practice.  One day I noticed that a lone figure was sitting in the bleachers watching us play.  Based on the man’s disheveled appearance and shopping cart full of possessions, my guess was that he was a homeless person.  At one point he called to me.  He reached into the shopping cart, pulled out a baseball, and threw it to me.  It was clear that he wanted me to have it.  A few moments later he called to me again, and this time he held up what appeared to be a brand new ball.  He threw it out to me.  It was indeed a nearly new, Rawlings Official Major League baseball.  I thanked him warmly, but he waved me off and continued watching us play. 

When we had finished and were packing up I asked the man if he intended for us to keep the baseballs.  He waved me off again.  I must say that I felt the weight of the wallet in my pocket.  I thought that this fellow could probably use a meal.  I asked if I could give him some money for the baseballs.  Believe me when I say that the look on his face was not that of joy and gladness.  Rather, his expression showed hurt and disappointment, even resignation.  For a final time he waved me off without ever saying a word, and we parted company. 

Why was he upset?  I have thought long and hard about my encounter with the man, and what I’ve realized is that I trampled on his attempt to be a person of worth who had something to give.  He had something of value to bring to the game and freely share.  He had found an opportunity.  He wanted to be a giver, not a receiver.  But by offering to pay for his gift, I locked him into the role of perpetual receiver.  I conveyed that I saw him as just a beggar after all.  In so doing I completely disrespected him.  The man taught me a valuable lesson that day.  People yearn to be givers.  To be a giver is to resemble Jesus.  It is more blessed to give than it is to receive. 

The world needs more saints these days.  The world needs more people like Hallur and Thorgeir, who gave up power and possessions for the good of the people in their land.  The world needs more people like the man at the East River Fields, who found an opportunity to give, and wanted to bless others with what he had.  The world needs more people like you and me to risk believing and to dare living that the only way to have is to give.  The only way to keep is to share.  And the only thing worth finding is opportunity.  Blessed are the givers.  Blessed are you who follow in the way of Jesus, and shine like the saints in light. 

[1] You can watch the whole 25-minute episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxUChBd7Idk&t=1392s

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FAITH THAT SEES AGAIN

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
October 27, 2024

The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.”  Jesus said to him, “Go, your faith has made you well.”  Immediately he regained his sight.  (Mark 10:51-52)

Today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark reminds me of a harrowing experience my family and I had during our summer travels.  In a recent sermon, I described how we were on a driving tour of the deep south.  The first leg of the journey was a flight from New York to Memphis, TN, where we rented a 2024 Nissan Altima.  Right from the start I was enjoying all the modern features of the car, especially how stiff the suspension was compared to our 2002 roly-poly minivan.  Cars these days don’t come with keys anymore.  You get a fob that does practically everything for you at the push of a button.  Also, the side mirrors have little lights that flash when other cars pull into your blind spots.  What will they think of next? 

One feature, however, I failed to investigate: the windshield wipers.  Why would I?  Everyday was hot and sunny, with no forecast of rain.  But then, as we were zipping along Interstate 55 towards New Orleans (just keeping up with traffic, I might add, at nearly 80 mph) I noticed a few drops on the windshield.  The time to find the wipers had come.  Suddenly, it was as if I had steered the car beneath Niagara Falls.  The heavens opened with such a torrential downpour that I could not even see the hood of the car.  I started pulling levers, twisting nobs, and pushing buttons where wipers had been on dashboards of old.  Nothing worked.  We had a car behind us, so I didn’t want to come to a abrupt stop.  We had a car in front of us, so I definitely did want to stop.  I was unclear about pulling off to the side for fear of hitting a guard rail or rolling into a ditch.  We were driving blind. 

Fortunately, before ramming or being rammed by the nearby cars, I finally pulled the correct lever and turned the wipers to high.  It was enough to restore my sight, and stop before hitting the car ahead of us.  The whole experience lasted only about thirty seconds.  But what a terrifying half minute it was.  Let the language I cried be imagined rather than repeated. 

We turn now from Interstate 55 in Louisiana to the road between the ancient cities of Jericho and Jerusalem, in the province of Judea.  I note, with amusement, the way Mark describes Jesus’ visit to Jericho: He came to Jericho; and as he was leaving Jericho.  That’s it.  He came, he left – which doesn’t say much for the cultural attractions of Jericho.  No sights to see.  No local cuisine to sample.  No important people to meet.  Jesus came to Jericho, he left Jericho.  But on the way out of town he encountered a man named Bartimaeus.  We don’t know anything about Bartimaeus other than he was a blind beggar, and the son of Timaeus.  The early church theologian, Augustine of Hippo, however, thought that today’s reading from Mark provides further clues to his identity.  The first clue is the curious naming of Bartimaeus’ father.  Bar-timaeus already translates as “son of Timaeus,” so why would Mark take another step to punctuate the point?  Augustine thought it was Mark’s way of making clear that Bartimaeus was once a prosperous person, part of a prominent family.[1]  Once upon a time, he had it all.  Then he lost it all.  Life was a good ride until the storm clouds burst, leaving Bartimaeus wrecked by the side of the road. 

Bartimaeus was blind, with either no family, or a family no longer of means to take care of him.  In first century Judea, without any safety network, he could do little other than beg for a living.  To make matters worse, in those days people generally believed that bad things happened only to bad people.  The blind were blind, the sick were sick, and the orphans were orphans because someone had sinned.  Bartimaeus was blind, they figured, because he himself, his father Timaeus, or some other member of the family had grievously broken a commandment or two.  Thus, since God was punishing sin through Bartimaeus’ blindness, people would be reluctant to help.  To do so would be interfering with God’s justice. 

Nevertheless, the Lord was about to restore the fortunes of Bartimaeus.  As he sat by the roadside begging from people entering and leaving Jericho, he heard that Jesus of Nazareth would be passing by.  So he shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  The people around Bartimaeus rebuked him.  They told him to be quiet and mind his place.  But shouted again.  Let the language he cried be repeated rather than described, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  Jesus heard him.  Jesus saw him.  Suddenly the townspeople did an about-face and said to Bartimaeus, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.”  Bartimaeus threw off the only possession he had, his beggar’s cloak, and came to Jesus. 

Imagine: after a harrowing ordeal of misfortune and blindness, now Bartimaeus stood before Jesus and heard the Lord of life ask him an extraordinary question: What do you want me to do for you?  How would you respond?  When Jesus recently put the same question to his disciples, James and John asked for power and influence (Mark 10:37).  Others might say health, or true love, or perhaps even the return of a departed family member who died prematurely.  What would you say?  What is the thing that inhibits you from living fully into being the person you believe God created you to be?  Bartimaeus didn’t need to think about it at all: My teacher, let me see again. 

 Augustine implied that what Bartimaeus said provides the second clue to his identity.  “Let me see again,” means that he was once a sighted person who lost the use of his eyes.  Bartimaeus had not been born blind.  He was asking for something he’d had and lost to be restored.  The gift he was asking for was something he remembered once having.  You heard what happened next.  Jesus said, “Go, your faith has made you well.”  Immediately Bartimaeus received his sight.  “Immediately” is Mark’s favorite word.  What’s the take-away here?  It’s neither the healing itself, nor the miraculous timing of “immediately.”  Rather it’s something about Bartimaeus’ faith that Mark wants us to emulate.  Bartimaeus chose faith, and received back the precious thing he’d once had and lost. 

Today’s Old Testament reading from the Book of Job (42:1-17) tells essentially the same story.  Many of us know the saga of Job.  Job was a man who had it all: wealth, health, and a fine family.  Job’s enviable state was a clear sign that God was blessing him.  Life was a good ride.  Then the heavens opened and the rain fell, suddenly and violently.  In a rapid series of calamities Job lost all of his wealth and his children.  Soon Job grew seriously and painfully ill himself. He became like Bartimaeus: one from whom the blessings of life were denied.  Why do bad things happen to good people?  Well, reasoned the friends of Job, bad things don’t happen to good people.  Bad things happen only to bad people.  The friends counseled that God was withholding blessings and fortunes from Job because of sin.  Job had broken the Commandments of Moses and the only way he could stop the storm and regain God’s favor would be to repent of the wrongs he surely must have committed. 

Job would have none of his friends’ spiritual direction.  Indeed, throughout the forty-two chapters of the book that bears his name, we hear Job’s denouncing his friends’ anemic attempts to explain the mystery of suffering.  He had done nothing wrong to bring such misery on himself.  We even hear Job’s raging against God for the way God was running the universe.  What would Job want God to do for him if God so asked?  We can imagine the list: health, wealth, and family restored.  And one more thing: an explanation.  Job wanted to know why God was treating him unjustly.”  Job was simply not going to sit quietly along the roadway of despair.  Therefore, Job is a role model of faith for us, as is Bartimaeus.  Job chose faith, and clung to the notion that God not only should, but would restore his fortunes.  He declared (19:25): I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger. 

The reading we heard today is the very ending of Job’s book.  It’s a happy ending.  We hear how God restored the fortunes of this ranting, raving person of faith.  Granted, Job never received quite the explanation he demanded.  The mystery of suffering remains a mystery, and the Book of Job is an enigma in its own right.  But God came through in the end with blessing upon blessing. 

Bartimaeus and Job are figures from long ago, and far away.  What is the relevance of their stories for us today, in 21^st century Manhattan?  It is faith.  It is the faith that clings to the notion that God is good.  It is the faith that trusts God is for us, not against us.  It is the faith that allows us to see – again.  God hears our cry.  God sees us in despair.  Indeed, none of us are spared the blinding storms of life.  Some live with chronic conditions.  Others receive devastating diagnoses.  Others lose loved ones and livelihoods.  All of us grow old and eventually run out of time.  So how can we receive and sustain faith in the goodness of God?  What is the nature of such faith?  I do indeed wish that I could put faith in a bottle, so that all of us might take it down from a shelf and have a dose whenever we needed to see the miraculous intervention of God.  Sadly, I can’t put faith in a bottle, but I can offer some observations that may be spiritually helpful for us. 

When it comes to the nature of true faith that opens our eyes to the presence of God, I suspect that many of us often put the cart before the horse.  I know that I do.  We say, “show me a miracle, like the healing of Bartimaeus, in real time today, and I will have faith.”  Or we say, “explain this or that doctrine to me so that it makes rational sense.  Give me an enlightened understanding, and then I will believe.”  Essentially, what we are saying to God is “give me the gifts, and then I will pay attention to the Giver.”  None of this is faith.  Rather, it is merely a transactional relationship with the notion of God.  But the stubborn, persistent faith we find in Job and Bartimaeus puts the horse back before the cart.  Faith comes before miracle.  Belief comes before understanding.  The Giver precedes and follows the gifts.  If we seek only the gifts, we may wind up missing it all.  But when we set our sights on God, who is the giver of all good gifts, we discover that God’s good pleasure is to give us the kingdom.  Therefore, trust in the goodness of God.  As Martin Luther said of Jesus in the famous hymn we will sing today, “the right man is on our side.” 

Last summer, while speeding along Interstate 55, the rains came and I lost all sight of where we were headed.  I confess that in those harrowing moments I was not contemplating the goodness of God or the nature of faith.  But the storm ended as suddenly as it started, and the clouds parted to reveal the rays of the sun, and our journey continued.  In retrospect, I take it as a parable of our salvation.  Indeed, we trust that it is God’s will that our journey continues.  It is God’s will to restore us to the life we lost.  The rains come and obscure our sight.  But salvation is nothing short of following Jesus on the road towards God’s intention for all of humanity: to be in perfect communion with Himself, and each other, and all of creation.  It is a life we all have a primal memory of once having, and will have again.  We will see it again.  Yet shall we see God; whom we shall see for ourselves and our eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.

Imagine the joy of Bartimaeus when he received back his sight, and beheld his Redeemer, and not as a stranger, again.  The Psalmist described the experience with the words we recited a moment ago.  Let the verses be repeated:

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
then were we like those who dream. 

Then was our mouth filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy. 

Then they said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.” 

The Lord has done great things for us,
and we are glad indeed. 

[1] Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament Vol II.  InterVarsity Press, 1998, p. 145. 

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FAITHFUL AND FLEXIBLE

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
October 6, 2024

Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”  (Mark 10:2)

This past August our summer travels included a driving tour through the deep south.  True, August may not be the optimal weather time to visit Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.  But I had never before been to these states, and you go when you can go.  One day in New Orleans we were walking around the city and came upon the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Louis.  It’s an instantly recognizable landmark and a house of prayer, so I wanted to go inside.  The day was extremely hot and sunny, so we were not exactly dressed for church.  I was smeared up with sun lotion, dripping with sweat, wearing shorts, a polo shirt, sunglasses, and a hat. 

Once inside the cathedral I was in the process of taking off my sunglasses, and changing into my regular glasses.  A man in an orange shirt with a logo approached me and said, “You need to take off your hat.”  He didn’t say please and he didn’t phrase it as a question.  It was an abrupt and surly declaration.  I was surprised, but thinking he might be a docent or some sort of official volunteer, I removed my hat.  Then I asked him, “Excuse me, do you work here?”  He replied “yes,” then “no,” then “does it matter?”  He added, “taking off your hat is a sign of respect.” 

Honestly, it was one of those moments when I was caught off guard.  In retrospect, I wish I’d had the presence of mind to say: Suppose I show respect for God by covering my head and wearing a hat in church.  Suppose I think it’s unfair that women get to wear hats in church and men don’t.  Suppose I were wearing a hat that proclaims “I ♥ Jesus,” like this one (here the preacher shall put on the hat).  In truth, I wasn’t wearing this particular hat in New Orleans because I only obtained it last week.  On Monday some phantom donor left ten of these in the narthex of the church.  They are brand new, and one can be yours if you want it.  Just ask me[1].  Seriously, what would the man in the cathedral have done had I turned to face him wearing a hat that proclaimed love for Jesus?  God, does wearing this hat in church offend or respect you?  Alas, I didn’t get to press these points with God’s self-appointed little helper.  After our brief exchange, he scurried away and left the building.  It was too hot to go chasing after him. 

Is it lawful for a man to wear a hat in church?  In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark (10:2-9), some Pharisees came to Jesus, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”  The question was a trap.  Anytime the Pharisees asked Jesus a public question, you can be sure they had ulterior motives.  They were setting a trap.  The scene reminds me of the old Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour cartoons that I used to watch as a kid on Saturday mornings.  Wile E. Coyote was forever setting elaborate traps to catch the speedy Road Runner.  Most of the traps involved cases of TNT, catapults, or jet-propelled roller skates that the Coyote procured from a mythical mail-order company called the Acme Corporation.  The devices never worked, and left the Coyote holding an exploding stick of dynamite, or squashed beneath a huge boulder.  Or the Coyote would walk off the edge of a cliff, and proceed some distance out into mid-air without falling.  Only when he looked down and realized that he had no ground beneath his feet would he wave goodbye, fall to the ground far below, and disappear into a little puff of dust.  But the Coyote would always be back the next day with a new trap to ensnare the Road Runner. 

So it is today: the Pharisees are back with a new trap in hopes of catching Jesus.  The trap involved the question of divorce.  Scholars of antiquity generally agree that in the time and place of Jesus, divorce was a fairly common practice.  Also the laws governing divorce clearly favored men.  Lots of men were obtaining frivolous divorces.  Yet at the same time they were all horrified that King Herod had divorced his wife to marry Herodias, the wife of his half-brother.  John the Baptist had lost his head when he dared to denounce the situation.  So the Pharisees, in the interest of getting rid of Jesus, were hoping they might lure him into condemning divorce with equal vigor, perhaps even mentioning Herod and Herodias by name.  Or, if Jesus went soft on divorce, they could charge him with trivializing the Jewish ideal of marriage.  It was a scheme straight from the Acme Corporation of mail order traps. 

Jesus didn’t fall into the Pharisees’ trap.  He neither relaxed the law, nor denied the inability of the human heart to fulfill the law.  His answer was in two parts.  First he asked them what Moses commanded.  They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.”  But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you.”  It’s interesting to note that Jesus didn’t criticize Moses for writing this particular commandment.  Divorce happens not because Moses wrote a commandment allowing it, but because the human heart, hardened by sin, can get to a point in marriage where divorce is the lesser of two evils.  Divorce is the result of sin, not the sin itself.  Indeed, too many people, already burdened with the pain of a failed marriage, have had their guilt made even heavier to bear by the notion that further sin lies in their obtaining a divorce.  Not so, according to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

For the second part of his answer, however, it’s almost as if Jesus were speaking from the other side of his mouth.  He took his disciples apart from the crowd.  When they asked him to clarify what he’d meant, he revealed a much more conservative stance on the matter, upholding Adam and Eve in paradise as the ideal, and pinning the scarlet Letter-A on any and all who remarry after divorce.  Is that what Jesus really taught?  Perhaps you are reconsidering whether you really want to wear the “I Love Jesus” hat after all.  No thanks, you.  The hard line doesn’t suit you.  The one-size-fits-all ethic actually doesn’t fit all.  What is the relevance of an impossible ethical ideal for people who don’t live in paradise?  In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t live in paradise.  In the opening lines of his classic novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne writes:

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. 

Life is messy.  No one is perfect.  Here is a young couple, for example, who rushed into a marriage they never should have entered.  They are completely ill matched for each other and deeply unhappy.  Are they stuck?  Must they remain together for the rest of their lives?  Here is someone else, a woman with a husband who abuses her physically and verbally.  If she divorces him, can she not under God’s law move on with her life, and marry someone who loves, honors, and cherishes her?  Is she stuck?  It’s one thing to admire how Jesus, the Road Runner, avoided the Pharisee’s traps and sped along unscathed.  But does he leave us behind with no possible escape from the prisons and cemeteries of our mortal existence? 

The answer, of course, is no.  Jesus does not abandon us to the grave, or throw away the keys to our prisons.  We might turn to today’s reading from the mysterious book of Hebrews (1:1-4, 2:5-12) to learn as much.  The letter, if indeed we can call it a letter, is more like a long love treatise in praise and thanks to God, for sending Jesus to share our humanity.  For “a little while,” writes the author, God made Jesus lower than the angels so that he might taste death for everyone.  Far from avoiding the perils and pitfalls of human life, God in Christ plunged into them.  Jesus, our great high priest, sympathizes with our weaknesses.  God is mindful of us.  God made Jesus perfect through suffering.  Thus, by sharing our humanity, Jesus is able to bring God’s children to glory.  The mission of Jesus is to bring us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.  He comes to break oppression, to set the captives free. 

How does he do it?  He guides us along right pathways for his Name’s sake.  He finds ways forward that are both faithful and flexible.  As he demonstrated to the Pharisees and his disciples, he finds ways that both uphold the Commandments and provide pastoral provision for imperfect people.  It’s a bit like the “I ♥ Jesus Hat” here.  You can’t argue with the slogan.  It is faithful, although we Episcopalians might phrase it differently on a hat of our own designing.  “I Loveth Thee, O Lord,” might be the writing on our hat.  The hat is faithful, and the hat is also flexible.  It comes with a Velcro strap on the back that you can adjust to the size of your head, or the amount of hair you have – or in my case don’t have – which is why I was wearing at hat in New Orleans.  We love Jesus because by the power of his Spirit, he does not abandon us in our prisons and cemeteries, but leads us into life that can be new and abundant. 

What does it look like to hold onto the faith given to us, but be flexible enough to move forward in life?  Many years ago at the beginning of my parish priesthood I served a large church as the curate.  At some point along the way the vestry, staff, and rector got stuck on some issues, and concluded it was time for the dreaded annual touchy-feely, team-building, all-day workshop.  To begin the day the consultant wanted to lead us in an exercise that struck most of us as a criminal waste of time.  She gathered us in a large room, and we each had to promise we would not leave it.  We were to mix and mingle with each other while the consultant sat at the head of the room playing music on a tape recorder.  The only stipulation was that when she stopped the music we had to stand where we were.  We could still speak, but with no music it would not be lawful for any man or woman to mill about the room. 

For the first few moments the music went on and off intermittently, while we obediently moved about or stood still.  There we were, a group of adults – each with a hundred other things to do – playing a form of musical chairs on a Saturday morning.  Eventually the consultant stopped the music and did not restart it.  We stood there for what seemed like an eternity while she sat silently at the head of the room.  We asked if she might consider starting the music.  Silence.  We asked again, this time using the words “beseech” and “vouchsafe.”  Silence.  We asked her to break character and end the game, but she wouldn’t answer us a word.  God’s silence.  Nothing happened.  We were stuck.  We became annoyed and impatient.  But we finally realized that the exercise was holding up a mirror, and calling us to be not only faithful, but flexible.  At length one person suggested that if music were required for us to move, we should make our own and sing.  Someone else suggested the Doxology, a song we all sang together Sunday after Sunday.  The choirmaster (who was also required to attend the retreat) hummed a pitch, we all sang “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,” and we captives walked free. 

Normally I am not one to be moved by artificially imposed group dynamics.  But I’ve always remembered the vestry exercise as a parable of what life in Christ can sometimes be like.  The music stops.  The voice of God falls silent.  God’s people get stuck.  Nothing happens.  At such times God’s people need to consider that our idea of the perfect can be the enemy of what God calls good.  

Staying faithful and moving forward, both at the same time, may for a little while seem paradoxical, but it is also possible.  It is to be on the road to redemption with Jesus.  It is to be following the one who gave himself for us, and is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. 

[1] By the end of the day, all the hats were claimed.

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THE CHURCH’S HEALING MINISTRY

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 29, 2024

Are any among you suffering?  Are any among you sick?  You should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.  (James 5) 

The late Fred Craddock was a well-known Methodist preacher and theologian who seems to be the originator of the following story.  A wise and seasoned minister received word that an older member of his church was at the hospital, gravely ill, and asking for prayers.  The minister hurried off, ready to comfort a faithful servant of the Lord in her last hour.  He arrived at the patient’s room, and found that she was indeed frail, weak, and apparently not long for the world.  He took her by the hand, and told her not to be afraid.  He would begin the Prayers for the Dying. 

Suddenly the woman’s eyes opened, and with all the strength she could muster she whispered, “Prayers for the Dying?  I don’t want Prayers for the Dying.  I want you to pray for healing.”  The minister swallowed hard because he knew that God’s healing, though not impossible, was quite improbable at this stage in the woman’s life.  Nevertheless, he didn’t want to argue with a dying person, so he offered the following safe, lame, lukewarm prayer: O God, if it would please you to make our sister well again, we ask that you restore her to health.  But … whether you heal her or not, let us know your presence in her suffering.  Amen. 

 When the prayer was finished, the woman slowly lifted her head off the pillow.  She sat up.  She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and finally stood up.  She said, “You know, I think it worked!  I think I’m healed!”  She walked across the floor, out the hospital room door, and bounded down the corridor yelling, “I’m healed, I’m healed!” 

Back at his car again, the minister sat behind the wheel for a long, long time without turning over the ignition.  Finally, he looked up to heaven and said directly to God: “Don’t you ever do that to me again!” 

Today’s reading from the Epistle of James (5:13-20) gives us an important look at the life of an early church.  What church?  We don’t really know.  The author addresses the letter to “the twelve tribes of the Dispersion.  Who wrote the letter?  We don’t know that either.  Some say it was James of Jerusalem, the brother of Jesus.  Others say it couldn’t have been James.  The Greek is too refined for an uneducated man who spoke Aramaic.  What is more, it seems to be not even a letter, but more a collection of teachings, even a list of do’s and don’ts.  Nevertheless, what we find in the passage we’ve read today is how a church ought to function in regards to illness and healing.  The author, whoever it was, exudes confidence in the healing gifts the church has to offer those who are ill.  The question for us today is, are the same gifts still on offer?  And if so, do we have confidence in them? 

Are any among you suffering?  Are any among you sick?  You should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.  The first thing we see here is the church community working to keep itself knit together.  The Offertory anthem that the choir will sing today has to be one of the finest choral motets of the 20^th century:

Draw us in the Spirit’s tether,
   For when humbly in thy name,
Two or three are met together,
   Thou art in the midst of them. 
Alleluya!  Alleluya!
   Touch we now thy garment’s hem. 

 I remember singing the anthem when I was a young chorister.  It speaks of the healing that is possible when we are in the presence of Jesus, as if we can reach out in faith and touch the hem of his garment, as did the hemorrhaging woman, who was healed (Mark 5:21-43).  Thus, as we read in James, it is imperative that we keep those who are sick within reach – that they not wind up isolated from the others.  In fact, the sick themselves should play an active role in sending for the elders – the elders being the priests. 

So the healing ministry of the church comes to fruition in the Christian community, where two or three gather together in the name of Jesus, and pray over and for the sick.  The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up, writes James.  Also, according to James, what we see here is a congregation immersed in the Word – in the Scriptures.  Note how he mentions Elijah, without having to explain who Elijah was.  Many people, then and now, become discouraged with prayer, concluding that only saints and seers can do it effectively.  But James calls on the Scriptures to remind us that Elijah, whose prayers were plenty effective, was just an ordinary human being like us.  Therefore, all of us ordinary people can persevere in prayer with and for the sick. 

Thirdly, James writes of another essential component of the church’s healing ministry: anointing with holy oil.  It’s here that I wish to spend a few moments of our time today, because over the years I’ve encountered a good bit of confusion, even suspicion over the church’s use of holy oil.  What is it?  Quite simply, it is olive oil, blessed by a priest or bishop of the church.  In the time and place of Jesus, olive trees were central to life.  The tree itself is tenacious, and can flourish with very little water in rocky soil.  Wood from the trees was useful in carpentry.  People pressed oil from olives and used it as fuel for their lamps and ointment for their wounds.  Some thought that olive oil contained medicinal properties.  Everyone agreed that olives were a blessing that God provided out of the earth.  Life was better because of the olive tree. 

The earliest Christians continued the Jewish practice of anointing the sick with oil, as evidenced in the Letter of James.  But over time the custom became associated only with those who were dying, and the rite became known as “extreme unction,” or “last rites.”  Some people who are sick rightly don’t want last rites, or prayers for the dying.  They want healing prayers.  Thus the oil became a fearful thing, an ominous sign.  When I was in seminary I worked for a summer as a chaplain intern on a medical floor in a hospital.  My simple charge was to go from room to room, visit with the patients who were open to a visit, and pray with those who desired prayer.  What I learned quickly is that many of the patients were terrified that a chaplain was at their door.  It suggested to them that someone thought they were far sicker than they supposed.  Next in line after the chaplain would be a visit from the Grim Reaper.  No thanks!  Save your holy oil for someone who really needs it.  What a shame, because the oil is meant for the midst of life, not merely the end of life. 

Another way we go awry in thinking of holy oil is to ascribe almost magical powers to it, as if it were an alternative to conventional medicine.  It is not.  From time to time people will ring at the parish house door and ask if they can purchase holy oil or holy water as if these were an over-the-counter drug to be used at home.  For the record, we do not sell flasks of holy oil or bottles of holy water.  We do not give them away for free.  Why not?  Because we administer these gifts from God in the company of two or three who gather together in Jesus’ name.  “Come to church,” is what we say to those folks.  Join those of us who are reaching out in faith to touch the healing hem of Jesus’ garment. 

How, then, shall we think of the holy oil?  We can think of it as a sacrament, as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.  The outward and visible sign is the oil itself.  The inward and spiritual grace is the tenacious love of God that is always present.  Are you ready for a semi-silly sacramental illustration?  Some of you may remember the old television show, Gilligan’s Island, in which seven castaways were marooned on an uncharted tropical island in the Pacific Ocean.  No one could find them.  No escape was possible.  They would have been completely cut off from society were it not for a common AM radio, the likes of which you could find in every 1960s home kitchen.  In many an episode they would gather around the radio to hear news from civilization, even occasional reports on any progress in finding them.  The radio signals were all around them at every minute, but they would be deaf to the broadcasts from home without this ordinary thing made of plastic and wire. 

Likewise, the sacraments.  The ordinary things of oil and water, or bread and wine can awaken our souls to the presence of God.  Through them we tune in to the business of heaven.  We stop short of saying that they create, or even bring the presence of God.  Rather, physical contact with them can open our eyes to see, and our ears to hear, and our minds to believe what is true at all times: that the Lord of hosts is with us.  So when we pray, and when we anoint, we don’t put any limits at all on God’s ability to heal.  We offer no safe, lukewarm prayers to protect our integrity if it “doesn’t work.”  We also know that a physical cure isn’t always the gift on offer.  If today’s strange Gospel reading (Mark 28:50) about cutting off your foot and hand has any meaning at all, it is that a physical cure is not the ultimate gift.  Entering the kingdom of heaven, being in the presence of God is the highest state of blessedness.  Sometimes God heals even through death.  It is a mystery.  Clearly, medical science has advanced by light years since ancient times.  But much of healing remains a mystery, including how our souls and bodies intermingle and participate in it together.  Thus, we can think of the holy oil as a gift to soothe and strengthen the soul.  We can think of the holy oil as an invitation into the presence of God, whose will for all people is health and salvation. 

Earlier in the sermon I mentioned that today’s Offertory anthem reminds me of my days as a chorister.  I can safely say that singing in the church choir was a profoundly good and formative experience of my growing up years – one of the best, in fact, that I remember and reflect on still.  Christ Church, East Orange, NJ, where my father was the rector, was an urban parish with a music program that punched above its weight.  The young choristers consisted of many neighborhood kids that the choirmaster had scooped up off the street.  One of the boys was named Val Howze.  Val was probably twelve at the time he joined the choir.  He had never been to church before.  He wasn’t even baptized.  But he had a natural gift for music that he might never have known had the church not drawn him into the Spirit’s tether.  Undoubtedly, one of the anthems we sang together was Draw us in the Spirit’s tether.  What we sang came to pass.  Val’s participation in the choir drew in his whole family, who starting coming to church and connecting with other parishioners. 

Then one day my father received a call at the church from Val’s mother.  Val had become seriously ill.  Somehow in his young body a cancer had begun to grow that would take his life within a year.  We always had our rehearsals on Thursday evenings.  I’ll never forget one time when all of the choristers marched over to Val’s apartment.  We would hold our rehearsal there because Val could no longer make it to the church.  Not only would we rehearse our anthems and descants, we would also be witnesses to Val’s baptism.  Then my father anointed Val’s head with oil, tracing the sign of the cross on his forehead.  Then he read the Communion service, and Val, for the first time, partook of the bread and wine of eternal life.  I am not a mystic now, and I certainly wasn’t one at age ten or eleven.  But even then I perceived that we were occupying a thin place in the veil between heaven and earth, with angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven. 

That evening in Val Howze’s apartment took place more than fifty years ago, and he has been gone from this life for nearly as long.  The physical cure that we all would have liked did not occur.  But Val died immersed in the community of the church.  He died knowing that he belonged to God, the Giver of all good gifts, who would raise him up on his last day. 

So we close where we began, with the invitation we hear in the Letter of James: Are any among you suffering?  Are any among you sick?  You should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. 

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TWENTY YEARS OF A NEW YORK RECTORSHIP

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 15, 2024

Jesus said,  “But I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.  You did not choose me but I chose you.”  (John 15:15-16)

On Sunday, December 6, 1903, I was not the Rector of Grace Church.  I have been here for a long time, but not that long.  In those days the Rev. Dr. William Reed Huntington inhabited the big house next door.  On December 6 – nearly 121 years ago – Huntington stood in this very pulpit and preached a sermon he entitled “Twenty Years of a New York Rectorship.”  I have read the sermon many times.  It is nearly six-thousand words long – approximately three times the length of my own sermons, I might add. 

In his anniversary sermon, Huntington, the 6^th Rector, explained that once in twenty years a minister might be suffered to be egotistical, or at least autobiographical, without blame; that he might, as often as that, excusably take his people into his confidence, and talk freely of the past workings of his mind and heart.  He described arriving here twenty years earlier and being awed by what he found: a highly organized, thoroughly equipped, modern parish.  He praised his predecessor, Henry Codman Potter, who had inspired people to fill the windows with brilliant stained glass.  Potter had built the chantry, the parish house, and other buildings for the work of ministry to the poor.  Then he had been elected Bishop of New York. 

One of the last things Potter did as the 5^th Rector was to secure the gift for replacing the old wooden spire with a new one made of stone.  Huntington took the new spire, still under construction when he arrived, to be an exclamation point on the ministry of the one who came before him, as if to suggest, “You’ll never top this.”  In his sermon he said, You can imagine my feelings, as a newcomer, at finding everything done.  I faced, almost with dismay, a situation where such a thing as progress seemed to have been made impossible by the attainment of the goal. 

Today I rise to preach a sermon by the same title as Huntington’s: “Twenty Years of a New York Rectorship.”  It is the first time in 121 years that any Rector of Grace Church has been able to claim the title for a sermon.  Fun fact: by my count it will be the 504^th Sunday sermon that I have preached from this pulpit – not including twenty Christmases, Good Fridays, and other holidays.  I can assure you that not once in 504 Sunday outings have I rattled on for six-thousand words.  Also, when I first arrived, I suffered no such dismay that everything was done.  In fact, certain people had warned Stacie and me that what needed to be done here quite possibly could not be done.  Some of you may remember how things were.  So return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when the good people of Grace Church were not happy. 

The congregation was not happy about what had been several unpleasant, controversial clergy leadership transitions, including my predecessor, the 13^th Rector.  They were angry about the extended interregnum that the diocese was requiring.  It took 5 ½ years and two interim rectors before the vestry had the green light to call the 14^th Rector.  The congregation was angry about the plan to grant Grace Church School its legal independence.  Some saw the move as a sign of institutional failure.  Ominously, the top third of the spire had taken on a dangerous tilt, and the whole thing was encased in scaffolding.  The people were worried about money.  The endowment, which had peaked at $23 million was down to $10 million.  In the year 2002, the only way to balance the budget was to withdraw $2 million.  As it was explained to me, it was five years to shut-down at the current pace.  

The Vestry had not been idle all this time.  Though contentious meetings went on for hours, one of the important things they did was to draft an ambitious turn-around plan.  They needed to call a rector who not only would agree with the plan, but help to implement it.  As for me, I had to figure out in a hurry how this “call from God” thing worked.  Stacie and I were living a perfectly happy life with our two little sons in a lovely, leafy suburb of Cincinnati.  But if God’s call came to me and I said no, how could I ever again preach from the pulpit of the church I was serving?  How could I ask my congregation there to do anything?  Did I really want to be someone who followed the command of God only when it was convenient?  For all of us, on both sides of the equation, it was time for a spiritual gut check.  To make a long story short, what I took to be a genuine call from God did come, and I said yes.  Grace Church chose me, and I chose Grace Church. 

Still, we didn’t know what to expect, and I must confess that I was girding myself for battle.  The opening hymn we sang just a moment ago – “Christ, the fair glory” – is the same one that began my installation service twenty years ago today.  It calls on help from angels, archangels, all the company of heaven, even the blest mother of Jesus, and the Father, Son, and Spirit for good measure.  We needed all the help heaven had to offer.  The help came, but in ways I never would have expected. 

I will always remember something that happened very early on in our time here.  It might even have been my first Sunday on July 4^th, 2004.  Nobody that day was highly organized.  Our move out of Cincinnati had been delayed, and I lost several days of what would have been time to get ready.  Circumstances did not allow any overlap with the interim rector, so it was just me, without even an acolyte.  In those days the summer Sunday morning nine and eleven o’clock services were boiled down to one at 10 am (which was another thing that made people mad, by the way).  I wasn’t even sure how to get to the front of the church to begin the service.  So my plan was to greet people at the Broadway door as they arrived.  Then I would saunter up the north aisle, slip into the Rector’s stall, and announce the opening hymn. 

As I rounded the corner from the narthex to the north aisle, I saw from the length of the nave, the door by the baptismal font open.  Coming through the door were Stacie, James, and Luke – the boys being 5 and 2 at the time, dressed for church in their little sport coats and bow ties.  Luke looked up, and upon seeing me, he broke free from Stacie’s hand and shouted “Daddy!”  Then he ran down the aisle and leaped into my arms.  The whole gathered congregation saw it, and it was as if everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.  All of the tension left the room.  The simple, happy scene conveyed: This can be good.  Church doesn’t have to be a fight.  We can turn the page.  We can be friends.  We had chosen each other, as Jesus had chosen us all, and called us friends. 

Next, to live into our friendship in Christ, Stacie and decided that we would invite everyone in the parish to dinner at the rectory – not all at once, of course, but little by little, and alphabetically.  Stacie has an MBA from Tuck and ran a GM component plant, so she knows how to make the line move on a budget.  So began a series of dinner parties for twenty, every other Thursday.  It took about a year and half to invite everyone.  At the same time, I was working to restore relations with Grace Church School, which had become quite frosty under my predecessor.  For ten years I coached the 7-8^th grade baseball team with George Davison.  One year we achieved a perfect season, unblemished by a single victory. 

Also, we needed to get the building open.  In the latter part of the interim, budget shortfalls required the church itself to be closed for most of the week, except for Sunday mornings and an hour on weekdays for Bach at Noon.  But it just wasn’t right to have a building like this on the greatest street in the world and not be open to the public.  The question was, why do we have a building like this at all?  What’s the point?  Some accuse of us having an edifice complex.  We are too focused on the building, they claim.  We should be more spiritual.  What we say in reply is that we, “dwellers all in time and space” that we are, live in a sacramental universe.  What I mean is that God conveys the Spirit to us only through the material order.  In fact, we would have no access to the spiritual realm whatsoever were it not for flesh and blood, bread and wine, paper and ink, bricks and mortar, wood and nails, stained glass and stone.  This building declares the glory of God, and it is our duty and delight to practice and to secure a ministry of presence: God’s living, loving presence. 

To do everything God calls us to do is expensive.  Discipleship is costly.  Some people look at Grace Church and want music for nothing and priests for free.  They may find it on MTV, but not here.  Over the past two decades the Spirit of the Lord has moved us to raise money – lots and lots of money.  First it was the Bicentennial Campaign in 2008, then the Power of Grace in 2012, followed by Lift up Thine Eyes in 2017, and finally Making all things New just earlier this year.  To help pay for the organ we rolled out Adopt A Pipe in 2010, which was a much better theme than what I suggested: “Be an Organ Donor.”  And in 2019 we celebrated the 125^th anniversary of the choir and school by raising the funds to restore the chancel furniture.  All of these campaigns have been on top of our annual campaigns, which have steadily grown over the years despite many challenges: the collapse of historic financial institutions, a pandemic, and lawsuits that grieved our souls, just to name a few. 

In today’s reading from his letter to the Romans (12:1-8), the Apostle Paul writes of spiritual gifts.  Among those he lists is the spiritual gift of generosity.  Grace Church is blessed to have in our fold people with the spiritual gift of generosity: people who give sacrificially, cheerfully, and gratefully because they know Jesus has called them friends.  St. Paul goes on to list other spiritual gifts, and in subsequent letters he would name even more.  Many of these gifts I have seen at work among us: around the vestry table, among our talented staff, in my clergy colleagues, from the voices of our choristers, through the fingers of Dr. Allen, and in the quiet devotion of people who come to church week by week.  St. Paul described it this way: For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 

So it is that William Reed Huntington and I have a few things in common.  Now we have both preached a sermon entitled, “Twenty Years of a New York Rectorship.”  Also, we both arrived at a time when the spire was encased in scaffolding.  At Huntington’s arrival, the spire was new.  It suggested to him that everything was done, and that he himself would have no progress to make.  In truth, Huntington quickly discovered much to do.  He was the principal author and architect of the 1892 Book of Common Prayer, the first revision since 1789.  He founded Grace Church School.  He built Grace Chapel over on East 14^th Street.  He was a giant in the Episcopal Church at a time when the Episcopal Church was a giant on the religious landscape of the nation. 

For all of his accomplishments, however, I may have one thing up on him.  My guess is that he never climbed the scaffolding to the top of the spire.  But I can tell you that when the opportunity presented itself to me, I took it.  In fact, standing next to the nine-foot cross up there was among the first things I did in the summer of 2004, and I have the pictures to prove it.  I remember looking down on Grace Church, shaped like a cross itself, and being amazed by what I saw.  I was grateful that by the grace of God, Grace Church chose me and I chose Grace Church.  I confess that I was semi-overwhelmed by what I knew needed to be done.  Yet I was eager to get busy. 

St. Paul warned us all not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think.  At the risk of transgressing Paul’s exhortation, I will say that for twenty years now I have striven to be a good steward of the office I occupy.  You and I, filled with the Spirit of the Lord as we are, still have much to do together, and we have all the time God grants us in which to do it.