[print_link]

SEEING ANEW

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple
February 2, 2025

Simeon praised God, saying, “My eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared before the face of all people, to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of your people Israel.”  (Luke 2:30-32)

Not long ago I received a mailing from the American Museum of Natural History.  Would I like to renew my long-ago expired membership?  It was a fair question.  I have spent many happy Saturdays there, mostly amidst the dinosaur bones, first as a child and then as a parent.  I note that between my two rounds of frequenting the place, they changed the name of my favorite childhood dinosaur.  Brontosaurus is now Apatosaurus.  I’m not angry, just disappointed.  Perhaps if they restored Brontosaurus to its Christian name I’d consider signing up for round-three. 

If I do renew my membership, I will certainly return to a particular dinosaur exhibit that tells a fascinating tale.  Under a glass case you can see the fossilized remains of a Coelophysis, in the fossilized mud where it died.  If you look closely, you can see the tiny bones of another creature where the dinosaur’s stomach would have been.  These bones belonged to Coelophysis’ last meal that he ate presumably just before he himself met his end.  Upon looking at the tiny bones, paleontologists concluded that they belonged to a baby Coelophysis.  Thus, Coelophysis was tried and convicted in the court of paleontology as a cannibal.  Say what you will about Tyrannosaurus Rex – he was obviously a brute and a bully – but not even the King of Tyrants would stoop to eating his own young. 

Coelophysis, however, lived by no such elevated ethic.   Or so everyone thought.  Then one day a young paleontologist was waiting for the subway in the station underneath the museum.  He saw there on the wall a mural that was an exact duplicate of the fossil upstairs.  He studied it, and he looked at it with new eyes.  Suddenly he saw the same old thing in a fresh way.  He realized that the small bones in Coelophysis’ stomach did not belong to one of its own kind.  These were the bones of a crocodile.  He revealed the new evidence to his colleagues, and Coelophysis was exonerated of cannibalism.  Coelophysis did not devour his own.  All he did was take down a crocodile and eat it.[1]  There’s no crime in that if you’re a dinosaur.  Coelophysis received a full pardon, though I don’t think his redemption is so complete that I would allow him anywhere near the dog runs at Union or Madison Square. 

Those of you who were here last week on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany might feel reasonably secure in guessing that today would be called the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany.  I don’t mean to pull the rug out from beneath any smug sense of liturgical superiority you’ve achieved, but that very thing is what I have to do.  Today is a day on the calendar that goes by many names, but Epiphany IV isn’t one of them.  Outside the church February 2^nd is affectionately known as Ground Hog’s Day.  At some point today in Punxsutawney, PA, the town officials will drag an unwilling rodent out of his hole to see if he casts a shadow.  If he does, superstition says we’re in for more winter.  No shadow means winter is just about over. 

Inside the church, today is a major feast day of the Christian year.  The official name used to be The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  In the Book of Leviticus (12:1-8), Jewish law states that a woman was ritually unclean for forty days after the birth of a male child.  It was decreed, therefore, that she should present herself at the Temple to make a sacrifice, and then presto: she would be clean.  Since February 2nd is forty days after Christmas, this would be the day of Mary’s purification that Luke describes.  So it was that for many centuries the church kept this day, calling it The Purification of Mary. 

Luke also cites another custom of the Jews: that first born sons be brought to Jerusalem, presented to a priest, and dedicated into a lifetime of service to God at the Temple.  Presenting the child was the Jewish way of thanking God for rescuing them at the Red Sea in ancient times.  If the parents didn’t actually want to leave their son at the Temple for a lifetime in God’s service – as most surely did not – they could make an offering to redeem him.  So in keeping with the Law of Moses, Mary and Joseph presented Jesus at the Temple, and redeemed him with a small offering of a pair of turtle doves, or two young pigeons.  This also happened on the fortieth day, and because Christian high holy days are more appropriately focused on Jesus rather than anyone else, nowadays the feast is called The Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple. 

Luke tells us that while they were at the Temple an old man named Simeon took Jesus in his arms.  He recognized that the baby was God’s promised Messiah, and declared that he would be a light to enlighten the Gentiles.  Because Simeon was apparently the first to call Jesus a “light,” Christians from earliest times have blessed and carried candles on February 2^nd, and have also called the day “Candlemas.”  So let’s review: today is Ground Hog’s Day, The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, The Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple, and Candlemas.  It’s also the day of our annual meeting, and the birthday of my sister-in-law who lives in Milwaukee.  Happy Birthday, Cheryl, if you are watching on the livestream.

What’s the point of it all?  It seems to me that old Simeon and the prophetess Anna have something important to teach us.  When Mary and Joseph presented Jesus to them, they both had the eyes to recognize their salvation in an ordinary child, brought by an ordinary family.  They both looked at Jesus in a new way, an saw something extraordinary.  Who were these two?  We really don’t know much about them.  It could be that Simeon was a priest of the Temple who offered sacrifices to God.  We know a little more about Anna.  She was at least 84 years old.  As a young woman, after only seven years of marriage, she was widowed.  So from that time until we meet her in today’s reading – probably 60 or more years later – she had devoted herself to being at the Temple night and day: fasting, praying, and encouraging all who came there looking for the redemption of Israel.  The point is, they both saw Jesus on this day, and recognized him for who he was. 

How hard it can be for us to see Jesus.  How hard it can be to recognize the Spirit of the Lord in our midst.  Every week The New York Times Magazine includes a column called The Ethicist.  People write in and ask for advice on how to make ethical choices in their particular dilemmas.  Recently (1/26/25, p.14), one person asked, “Can I go to church when I don’t believe?”  The writer describes how he grew up in the church, but now rejects the Christian faith for many of the classic reasons disbelievers often cite: Jesus was just another guy, the Bible is just another book, and the followers of Jesus, throughout history, have not lived by any elevated ethic.  They are brutes and bullies just like the rest of us.  “But boy, oh, boy,” writes the disbeliever, “do I love the artistic output of Christianity.  Bach’s B-minor Mass, the Faure Requiem, St. Paul’s Cathedral – all these lift my spirit.  I love a beautiful Christian service.  Kneeling creates humility and gratitude.  It does me good.”  The writer concludes that he’ll never be converted, and wonders if he’s hurting anyone by participating.  Is he lying?  Is he a hypocrite? 

In reply, the ethicist has many good things to say.  The way of beauty can be a means by which we experience God without having to explain it.  He also touches on the dance between belief and participation.  What we say in the Episcopal Church is that participation comes first.  It leads the way.  Praying shapes believing.  Belief is always a work in progress.  Who is to say who believe what on any given Sunday?  So of course you can come to church.  You can even make a gift to the capital campaign no matter what you believe (we already have enough pigeons, thanks).  Oftentimes, we give too much weight to our belief.  Just because we believe something doesn’t mean it’s true.  Likewise, just because we don’t believe something doesn’t mean it’s untrue. 

I might say something else, as well, to the disbeliever who wants to participate.  Don’t write yourself off as unconvertable.  Don’t assume that God won’t open your eyes to see the same old thing in a new way.  When you least expect it, God my present Jesus to you.  In fact, it may already be happening through your participation.  See how it worked for Mary and Joseph, and for Simeon and Anna.  One thing I note is how anchored they all were in the law of the Lord.  The traditions and rituals their people celebrated kept them focused there.  I’m struck by how many times Luke notes that Mary and Joseph were acting out “everything required by the law of the Lord.”  It was within the framework of their faith that their eyes came to see Lord’s presence in the otherwise ordinary events of life. 

As for Simeon and Anna, they not only practiced their faith, they practiced patience.  They waited.  We don’t like waiting.  We prefer to be in control and make things happen quickly.  But every so often you stand before some reality you can’t control.  God would be one of those realities.  The appearing of Jesus would be one of those realities.  We learn to see God by waiting with patience.  Simeon and Anna had waited for decades to see God’s salvation, and we can suppose that they would have kept on waiting.  For them – for many – spiritual insight and perspective is a blessing that comes only with patience.  Why should we wait for God?  The answer is: God comes to those who wait.

Finally, we might take note of Simeon and Anna’s hope and faith.  These two didn’t spend all those years at the Temple despairing that God would never appear.  No, they expected God to fulfill the word spoken through the prophets.  They trusted that God would come through, no matter how long their wait would be.  Perhaps if we hit pause on panic, and practiced instead a measure of Simeon and Anna’s hope and faith, we too would see Jesus anew, presented to us even today: in the Word, in the Sacraments, and in this community of people gathered together in his name. 

Some time ago I read the autobiography of the late Bishop of Newark, John Shelby Spong.  Spong tells a story about his days as a philosophy major in the 1940’s at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.  He writes of two people who profoundly affected him.  The first was a challenge.  His name was Professor Louis Katsoff, who was chairman of the philosophy department and a self-proclaimed atheist.  When the young John Spong told the professor he was interested in philosophy because his ultimate goal was to become a priest, Louis Katsoff replied that “Christianity was a hopeless hangover from another age, and you should not waste your life.” 

The second person the Bishop writes of was the rector of the Episcopal Church in town, a man named David Watt Yates.  David Yates was not a scholar, but a courageous man with deep convictions whose faith in Jesus often led him to take extremely unpopular stands on the issues.  He was a pacifist.  He preached vehemently against racial segregation.  He lived his life by an elevated ethic, with uncompromising integrity.  From his example Bishop Spong learned about the cost of discipleship. 

Years later, after he was ordained a priest, Spong returned to Chapel Hill to speak at the church.  He writes that to his utter amazement, he found Louis Katsoff, the atheist philosopher, now a baptized and confirmed member of the church.  Spong asked him how this change had come to be, and Katsoff replied, “David Yates finally got to me.”  Spong was even more confused, and said, “How could that be?  You can think rings around him.”  Katsoff replied, “David didn’t outthink me, he just outlived me.”[2] 

God presented Jesus to Louis Katsoff through David Yates, and Katsoff saw his salvation in what he’d previously thought was a fossilized dinosaur from another age.  On this Feast of the Presentation, on this day of our annual meeting, my prayer for Grace Church is that God presents Jesus to us, and that we in turn present Jesus to the world.  Let it be so, until all the earth is able to sing the song of Simeon: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people. 

[1] “Subway Sleuth Clears Dinosaur of Cannibalism,” by John Noble Wilford.  The New York Times, September 6, 2006.

[2] Spong, John Shelby, Here I Stand, HarperSanFrancisco, 2000, p. 50.

[print_link]

A SERMON ABOUT SERMONS

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany
January 26, 2025

Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen.” (Nehemiah 8:6)

The title of the sermon that follows is this: “A Sermon About Sermons.”  One of the most memorable sermons I’ve ever heard was preached from this very pulpit on October 10, 2004.  I was the brand-new Rector of Grace Church at the time, and not the preacher that day, so don’t think I am about to toot my own horn.  The preacher was the Rt. Rev. E. Don Taylor, one of the Assistant Bishops of the diocese who was here for Confirmation.  Bishop Taylor was a saintly man with a big heart.  He had a warm sense of humor and a quick wit.  At an earlier time in his life he had been a radio announcer, so he knew has to apply his voice toward pulpit eloquence.  It was pleasing to hear him.  Also, he had many stories to tell.  Double underscore the word many. 

In the congregation that day was a young couple named Melanie and Mike.  Melanie was a sponsor of a Confirmation candidate, so Mike had charge of their five-month old baby girl during the service.  Soon into Bishop Taylor’s sermon, the baby did what babies are inclined to do: she blew her diaper.  It was a terrible mess.  Mike had to retreat to the reception room to make the change.  One problem: he discovered he had no spare diaper.  Mike reasoned that since they lived only a few blocks away, he could dash home, change the diaper and the baby’s outfit, and be back in time for coffee hour.  Maybe even Communion.  Off to the races he went. 

When Mike returned with the baby about thirty minutes later, he saw that he had not missed coffee hour.  He had not missed Communion.  He had not even missed Confirmation.  Bishop Taylor was still holding forth in the pulpit, telling one story after another.  Honestly, he could have said “Amen” after any one of them, but he did not.  I heard the whole thing, and all I can tell you today is that the sermon was about two things.  It was about God, and it was about forty-five minutes.  It was memorable not for its content, but its duration.  Among a select few, it became known affectionately as “The Two Diaper Sermon.” 

The second sermon to consider today is the one we heard about in the Old Testament reading from Nehemiah.  The preacher was Ezra the priest.  The date was the first day of the seventh month – the month of the autumn harvest festival.  The year was approximately 440 BC.  The Jews had recently returned to Jerusalem.  Their long ordeal in Babylonian exile had ended.  They were home.  Their first task would be to rebuild the walls around the city, and then the Temple in the midst of it.  In the Book of Nehemiah, we read how the renewal of life in Jerusalem inspired the Jews to renew their covenant relationship with the living God.  It was time to give thanks to the Lord who, centuries before had brought them out of their bondage in Egypt, and now home from their exile in Babylon.  So the people gathered in the city square before the Water Gate.  Ezra the priest stood on a makeshift wooden platform that they had put up for the occasion.  All eyes were upon Ezra, including the governor, Nehemiah.  What did Ezra say?  Did he speak truth to power?  Did religion and politics clash in the moment?  Apparently not.  Ezra and Nehemiah were on the same page concerning the renewal of Israel.  So Ezra opened the Law of Moses.  He began reading and interpreting in the early morning and continued until midday – about six hours in all. 

At one point in the sermon the people lifted up their hands and cried “Amen, Amen.”  Without exception Biblical commentators find great reverence in how the people reacted to Ezra’s sermon.  Indeed, they conclude that the shouts of Amen were signs of approval, even a desire to hear more.  But I wonder: could it be that the cries of “Amen, Amen” – at least among some of them – meant “Stop, Stop.  Enough already.  We get it.”  Was Ezra deaf to the signal?  Apparently so, because he kept right on going, until finally picking up on the not-so polite, non-verbal cues: all the people wept when they heard the words of the law.  Ezra finally pronounced the Amen by saying, Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared.  Ezra’s sermon was remarkable for its duration as much as its content.  But Ezra eventually wrapped it up with a cheerful bow: Go forth into the city, he said.  Live your life and be God’s faithful people.  Enjoy the blessings of the land and share them with the less fortunate.  Amen. 

The third sermon before us today occurred nearly five-hundred years after Ezra.  We’ve heard in the Gospel of Luke (4:14-21) how Jesus, on a preaching tour through Galilee, stopped in his hometown of Nazareth and went to the synagogue.  It was the Sabbath, and Jesus was to be the guest preacher.  He unrolled the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and began to read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  The passage from Isaiah would have been well known to the Jews of Jesus’ day.  They would have understood it as a prophecy foretelling the coming of the Messiah.  The key word, “anointed,” would have rung a bell in their minds.  They would have thought, “Ah, this is about the coming king God has promised us.  This is about the One whom God will send to fulfill the dreams of Ezra and Nehemiah and all of us faithful Jews since those ancient times.” 

When Jesus finished reading he sat down to teach, and all eyes were upon him just as they were fixed on Ezra centuries ago.  What would the hometown boy say?  How long would he go?  He began the sermon with these words: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  And with that he finished the sermon.  It was a one-liner.  Jesus served up what has to go down on record as one of the shortest sermons ever preached.  Why?  It’s not that he was a practitioner of today’s prevailing pulpit etiquette.  The latest thinking goes that our postmodern brains have been so molded by the internet that anything beyond ten minutes will exceed the bandwidth of our attention span.  Do you agree with the current trend?  Apparently I don’t, since I’m told that I frequently pass the ten-minute mark twice in the same sermon.  In other words, you’d best bring a spare diaper when I’m preaching – not because of content, mind you, but duration.  Whether or not you agree with the new pulpit guidelines, they don’t explain the brevity of Jesus’ one-line homily.  Indeed, on other occasions he went on all day, and would have given even old Ezra a run for the money. 

Why then at Nazareth did Jesus speak only nine words?  Actually, the case could be made that his sermon, at nine words long, was nine-times longer than it needed to be.  You see, what he was doing by saying, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” was claiming to be the Messiah.  He was declaring that he himself was the living fulfillment of all the hopes and dreams of the Jewish people.  The great sermon that God was preaching to the world through the particular history of Israel was reaching its climax in Jesus.  His mere presence was all that needed to be said.  Jesus read the text about the Messiah, then sat down and essentially said, “Here I am.”  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  He came to his own, yet his own received him not.  If you read beyond today’s Gospel, you’ll see that Jesus’ few words infuriated the people of Nazareth.  I suppose that’s the risk you run when you go into a house of worship: you may hear a word from the Lord that you don’t like.  But that’s another sermon for another day. 

Suffice it to say, Jesus lived into his nine-word sermon by stretching out his arms upon the hard wood of the cross.  There he said, “It is finished.”  There he spoke the great cosmic Amen to God’s work of salvation.  God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.  Henceforward, all sermons would be footnotes to Jesus.  Allow me to anticipate an objection.  You may be thinking that if indeed Jesus were the Messiah, and through him God spoke the ultimate Amen of salvation, why then is the world in the mess that it is?  It would seem that a good bit of the sermon still needs to be preached.  Well, the sermon does still need to be preached.  Far too much of the world has not heard or has failed to believe that the victory of life is won.  What God requires, then, from those who call themselves people of faith is justice, kindness, and humility.  What does the Lord require of you, asked the prophet Micah (6:8)?  It is to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.  It is to be merciful.  Think of it this way: your life may be the only sermon someone else ever hears. 

Of course, this bring us to the fourth sermon that we need to mention today.  It was just last Tuesday in the National Cathedral when the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, the Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde, preached at the Inaugural Prayer Service.  Since then the sermon and its ripple effects have received widespread media coverage.  If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to go online and watch it, or read it.  The bishop’s words are remarkable not for their duration, but their content.  In just fourteen minutes she challenged everyone listening – especially the President – to have mercy.  Imagine that: have mercy.  She didn’t shout.  She didn’t scold.  She spoke truth to power in a way that was respectful, reasonable, and reverent.  She dared to preach that other sermon on that other day.  Have mercy, is what she said.  Be merciful to one another, as God is merciful to us.  When we show mercy to one another we demonstrate trust in God.  We give thanks to God.  We participate in God’s ongoing work, and say Amen to all that God has done for us in Jesus. 

In today’s reading from 1 Corinthians (12:12-31), we’ve heard Paul the Apostle put it this way: Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.  Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.  God works in the world by merging his Spirit with our spirits.  God merges his Spirit with our spirits through the Word and Sacraments, through prayer and worship, through the fellowship of the church.  God merges his Spirit with our spirits and we become the Body of Christ.  We become the eyes, ears, hands, and feet of Jesus connected with his great work of salvation.  If Christ is the ultimate Amen, then each one of us is a significant Amen.  Regardless of your calling – and a calling from God everyone has – you can be part of it.  Your life can be part of the great ongoing chorus that sings Amen to the victory that God has already won.  People are fond of quoting St. Francis of Assisi, who said, “Preach the gospel at all times.  If necessary, use words.” 

In just a few weeks we will have a guest preacher in the pulpit.  The Rev. Roderick Leece is the Rector of our companion parish in London, St. George’s, Hanover Square.  St. George’s most illustrious parishioner was non other than George Frideric Handel, the composer of one of the world’s greatest musical works, Messiah.  Handel’s Messiah is like a long sermon set to music, pointing to Jesus.  In fact, it might be the fifth sermon we call attention to today.  The conclusion of it all ends with the same word that wraps up most sermons – you guessed it: Amen.  Whenever church bulletins, concert programs, or album notes print out the texts of musical pieces, the final chorus of Messiah always looks a bit odd.  Just one word.  How long could it take?  Well, the one-word chorus is nearly four minutes of unfolding, overlapping, intermingling, harmonious Amens, sung by individual sopranos, altos, tenors, and bases, who each form a section and then finally a single choir.  The work is done, the prayer is said, the sermon is preached.  But the Amen goes on and on. 

So it is with us.  The great body of God’s people in the world is like the Amen of Handel’s final chorus in Messiah.  We overlap and intermingle with an ongoing choir, even angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven.  We are the Body of Christ, and individually members of it.  As people of Christian faith, we are the choristers singing Amen to the composition of God’s salvation in Jesus. 

So let the Amen sound from God’s people again, who gladly, forever adore him.  Let the Amen sound from me, too, because now that I have preached a sermon about sermons, it is time to bless the Lord, the great God, and say, “Amen, Amen.” 

[print_link]

NO PLACE TO PARK

 The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Second Sunday after Christmas Day
January 5, 2025

The sparrow has found her a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young; by the side of your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God (Psalm 84:2)

Two summers ago the Waring family traveled to the Pacific northwest for vacation.  From Seattle we made our way down the Oregon coast.  The area was in the grips of an uncommon heat wave, so when a beach day presented itself, we jumped at the chance.  Cannon Beach in Oregon is amazing.  It is often ranked among the most beautiful places on earth, and if you ever go there you’ll understand why.  Unfortunately, we were not the only tourists who thought it would be a good day to visit.  The parking lot was an angry, churning sea of cars.  We began traveling up and down every row, searching for a place. 

Suddenly, as if by a miracle, right before my eyes was an open spot – not just any spot, but the first one in a row beneath a shady tree.  I couldn’t believe my eyes, but there it was.  Do you know the lineup of angel statues at Rockefeller Center, how they point their trumpets and lead the tourists towards the lighted tree?  Well, it was as if a choir of angels were singing to me: “Park here.”  So there I parked.  And yes, the sparrow may have found her a house and the swallow a nest by the side of the altars of the Lord of hosts, but I had found a place to park at Cannon Beach beneath a shady tree. 

Later in the day we began the trek back to the car.  In the parking lot we found the same, congested mess: too many cars searching in vain for too few spaces.  As we walked, a number drivers slowed to our pace and began following us.  One woman lowered her window and asked impatiently if we were leaving.  Strangely, I became reluctant to vacate the parking place.  Correction: my parking place.  I thought to myself, why should I relinquish my space to a pushy millennial in a Subaru?  We should go back to the beach.  Let’s linger for photos by the Dodge Charger we had rented.  It was quite a car.  People could admire us as we posed by it.  Let’s stay here in this parking place that is mine.  This is as good as it gets, I reasoned.  Alas, the place wasn’t mine to keep.  We had to move on, just as we always have to move on.  As we pulled away, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that my happy parking place was already taken. 

In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew (2:13-15, 19-23), we hear how the holy family of Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus had to move on from where they had temporarily parked.  In moving on, perhaps they took a last grateful look back at the place in Bethlehem where Jesus had been born.  Matthew says the place was a house.  Luke implies it was a stable.  Whatever it was, the place had been an island of peace for Mary and Joseph.  It had sheltered them when they badly needed to be sheltered.  They had received visitors from the East.  A lineup of angels had directed the shepherds in the fields to the location. 

Indeed, Bethlehem had been a place of mystery and joy, but it was not a spot where they could remain.  Now it was time to move on: “Get up,” said an angel of the Lord to Joseph in a dream.  “Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, for Herod is about to search for the child , to destroy him.”  As Matthew tells the story of Jesus’ early childhood, the holy family was constantly on the move.  They lived as refugees in Egypt until, once again, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.”  So it was back again to Israel, and eventually, finally, to Nazareth where the family finally settled. 

The story that Matthew tells of Jesus’ first few years is that of a family traveling up and down, but having to move on from every parking place they found, whether they wanted to or not.  Matthew and Luke tell different infancy stories, but both agree that an arduous journey was involved.  Perhaps Jesus’ parents’ need to keep moving set a tone for the rest of his life.  During his ministry, Jesus was always on the move, saying such things as, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.”  He had a destination in mind, and those who wanted to follow him would need a good pair of walking shoes, a willingness to leave behind much, and a readiness to move on.  Their hearts would need to be set on the pilgrim’s way, as we read in Psalm 84.

Today, in many ways, represents a time for us to move on and continue on the pilgrim’s way.  Today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas.  Do you know the Christmas carol, “Tomorrow shall be my dancing day?”  Well, forget it.  Tomorrow is not your dancing day.  Tomorrow is Epiphany.  Tomorrow is time for the Christmas tree and the decorations and the lights to come down and be packed away.  Tomorrow is time for the three most despicable words in a child’s vocabulary: back to school.  Tomorrow the pressures of life will re-assert themselves.  For us, Christmas 2024 is fading into the rear-view mirror, as did Bethlehem for Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. 

But this Second Sunday after Christmas Day allows to linger for one more moment.  When most of the world has already returned to their routines, we have an opportunity to take one final look back before we move on.  So let me ask you: Was Christmas a time of mystery and joy for you?  Was it a place of peace and serenity, as we imagine Bethlehem turned out to be for the holy family?  Did you have moments that you wanted to occupy more permanently than we are allowed to occupy any moment?  Moments like: your whole family crammed into a pew on Christmas Eve; little children rushing toward the tree to open their presents; three generations of culinary artists at work in the kitchen preparing the afternoon feast; everyone you love gathered around the dining room table.  Such radiant times.  You want to stop the clock right then and park there indefinitely.  This is as good as it gets. 

The troubling truth is this: no matter how good your parking place is, sooner or later you have to relinquish it.  You have to move on.  Last fall we celebrated my 20^th anniversary as Rector of Grace Church.  Before we came here I was the rector of a church in Cincinnati.  We lived in a house that Stacie and I had bought and made our own.  We transformed one bedroom into a nursery.  I’ll never forget installing the Noah’s Ark wallpaper while Stacie was great with child.  In the backyard we had buried a beloved cat who had died before her time.  The house was more than a house, it was home.  Then Grace Church came calling, and we knew that God was opening the door to a new chapter of life and ministry.  In heart and mind we were ready to get up and go.  Or so we thought. 

To make a long story short, the movers packed up our belongings and finally pulled away.  It was time for us to roll.  Stacie and I thought one final sweep of the house was in order.  Thus, with the boys already strapped in their car seats, we went from room to room in the empty house.  So far so good.  Then we eventually came to the nursery with the Noah’s Ark wallpaper.  Blast that Noah’s Ark wallpaper!  I am not a person who cries easily or often, but suddenly we were both sobbing.  The Noah’s Ark wallpaper got me.  Moving on can be a wrenching experience, even when we know it is a calling from God.  “Thou must leave thy lowly dwelling, the humble crib, the stable bare,” is how the choir will sing it today.  As we set ourselves on the pilgrim’s way, somehow our strange yearning for permanence – for Home with a capital “H” – is never quiet fulfilled. 

Whoever it was that wrote what we call Psalm 84 had the same yearning and unfulfilled desire for home that we do.  Listen: My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.  The sparrow has found her a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young; by the side of your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.  Happy are they who dwell in your house!  They will always be praising you.  The point that the Psalmist is trying to make is this: we have no permanent home here on earth.  We are all displaced persons who wander through this life as nomads.  We are all homeless people who are homesick for heaven.  St. Augustine put it this way when he prayed, Thou hast made us for thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.  People often quote Augustine’s prayer because it rings true.  We will always be restless until we find our rest in God.  We will always be homeless until we find our home in God.  We will always need to move on until we finally arrive Home.  We are not meant to park here forever.  Get up, says the angel.  Move on.

So it is that on this Twelfth Day of Christmas we prepare to move on.  We look back on another Christmas that we gratefully inhabited.  We head into all the uncertainties of 2025 with no way of knowing what a new year will bring for any of us.  But before you conclude that things can only get worse, before you decide that God has nothing new under the sun to show you in 2025, before you become reluctant to give up your parking place, remember Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus.  Remember that the time came for Mary and Joseph also to leave Bethlehem and head into an uncertain future in an unknown land. 

How did they find the courage to move ahead?  I can imagine how they might have glanced back over their shoulders at the place where Jesus was born.  Looking back sometimes can give us the strength to go forward.  Looking back they might have realized that the humblest of places, the least likely of people, and the most unexpected of times can be charged with God’s presence.  If God had made himself present in those surroundings, God could make himself present wherever they were headed.  It can work the same way for us.  We can look back on our own radiant moments and realize how God made himself present – how God became incarnate in the people that inhabited those times and places with us.

As Mary and Joseph moved on from Bethlehem, Matthew writes how they discovered God to be powerfully with them as they traveled.  They did not leave God behind in Bethlehem.  God would be present in front of them, leading them and directing them – even protecting them.  God sent angels to warn Joseph in his dreams.  God saved Jesus from Herod and eventually established the Holy Family in Nazareth.  God was leading them all the way, all the time.  Fun fact alert: the Greek word on the angel’s lips that we translate into the English “get up,” or “arise,” is significant.  This word – “arise,” “get up” – pronounced “egi’ro” in Greek, is the main New Testament word for nothing less than resurrection.  “He is not here; for he has been ‘gotten up,” said the Easter angel at the tomb of Jesus.  “Get up,” said Jesus to the dead daughter of Jairus.  “Get up,” said the angel to Mary and Joseph.  “Get up,” says the angel to us.  Thus when we obey the angelic summons, when we look ahead, when we un-dig our heals, when we arise and move on, we practice resurrection.  We anticipate what some have called “that great getting-up morning.” 

What of our final destination?  What of the homesickness for heaven that afflicts us as we travel?  The reason that God moves us on through this life and never lets us settle is precisely to satisfy our longing for the courts of the Lord.  We have a desire that no parking place on earth can satisfy, so God is prodding us, calling us, cajoling us, and urging us to that Place of all places, where Christ has gone ahead to prepare us a room.  He is leading us to dwell in his house.  There the only moving on will be from height to height, to ever closer revelations of the Lord of hosts, as we read in Psalm 84. 

Even the sparrow has found her a house, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, by the side of the altar of the Lord of hosts.  If such is true for the birds of the air, which neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, imagine how much more true it is for those who belong to Christ.  You are of much more value than the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, says the Lord Jesus. 

So arise.  Get up.  Move on.  Your destination is God, and your heart will always be restless until you find your rest in Him. 

[print_link]

GOD COMES DOWN

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
Christmas 2024

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.  (Isaiah 9:6) 

In the sermon that follows, I am going to tell you about two, high and lofty people who reached down from their impossible heights to bless me.  Long ago and far away, my first job out of seminary was on the clergy staff of a big church in suburban Detroit.  I was the lowest of the low in the pecking order.  My title was something like “Second Assistant to the Night Vicar.”  My office was accessible only by walking through the vesting room for choir women – meaning I was barred from entry on Sunday mornings.  Silly me: I had always assumed that beneath their vestments, the ladies of the choir were fully clothed. 

In those days, at the other end of the power spectrum, the CEOs of both GM and Ford – Roger Smith and Donald E. Petersen – were members of the church.  Imagine, on any given Sunday, one if not two of Detroit’s three kings – or wise men, if you like – might be in attendance (the third being Lee Iacocca, who was a Roman Catholic).  I remember Mr. Petersen especially as an active, engaged, and generous parishioner.  I was sad to read of his death earlier this year at the age of 97. 

One Sunday I preached a sermon about the lure of possessions.  Ford recently had redesigned a model called the Probe, and I thought it was the most attractive thing on four wheels.  I confessed in the sermon how tempted I was to do the truly financially reckless thing and go buy one.  As luck would have it, Mr. Petersen was there and heard the sermon.  At the door of the church he said that if I’d really like to drive a new Probe he’d have his assistant call me the very next day.  “Sure,” I said, knowing full well I couldn’t afford it.  You see, I’d finally finished making payments on my Chevy, and didn’t want to go into debt again.  I was living on a steady diet of peanut butter and aerosol cheese.  Now one of the most powerful executives in all of corporate America was trying to sell me a car.  Or so I thought.  I figured he didn’t get to the corner office by giving cars away.  He was trying to sell me a car.  He wanted to report to his shareholders that he, personally, had sold another one. 

Sure enough, Mr. Petersen’s assistant called the next day, offering to put me behind the wheel of a Probe.  But with faulty reasoning swimming in my brain, I politely declined.  I never thought to ask the simple question: what’s this going to cost me?  It was only much later when I learned what the price would have been: nothing.  By the authority vested in him at Ford, Mr. Petersen had cars to give, and he wanted to reach way down to my lowly estate and give one to me. 

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.  Of course, at the sound of these familiar words our minds turn towards Christmas.  But the truth is, they date from a time over seven centuries before the birth of Jesus.  To understand them fully we must encounter a man who has never appeared in any Christmas pageant or nativity scene.  The man’s name was Ahaz, and he was the king of Judah and heir of David.  Ahaz was the latest in the long line to rule in the Davidic Dynasty, which itself was a sign of God’s presence with the Jewish people.  The understanding was that as long as an heir of David reigned, God would be in the midst of the people. 

The reign of Ahaz was troubled.  In 732 BC he faced an international crisis that put the dynasty in danger of extinction.  Three stronger and hostile kings threatened to move against tiny Judah.  Two of them had already taken up siege positions around Jerusalem, and the biggest of them all, Assyria, loomed in the background.  In the seventh chapter of Isaiah the prophet describes how the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook with fear as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.  Ahaz didn’t know what to do.  Just then, God reached down from the heights, and spoke through the prophet Isaiah.  God gave the king a gift.  Isaiah told Ahaz not to fear.  Judah would not perish at the hands of her enemies.  God’s gift was an invitation to trust.  Fear not.  Do nothing.  You can wait this one out.  God is with you.  Ahaz found Isaiah’s words impossible to believe, so the prophet gave him a sign that would be a tangible token of God’s presence.  Isaiah pointed to a young woman standing nearby and said, “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”  By the time the child is about two years old, this crisis before you will be forgotten. 

Who was the young, pregnant woman?  What makes the most sense is that she was the wife of Ahaz, the king.  The child she carried would be Immanuel – God with us.  The sign of God’s presence was the Davidic Dynasty.  Only a child of Ahaz could continue the line and embody the promise.  What is more, Isaiah went on in chapter nine to announce just such a royal birth, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.  But the question that bedevils Biblical scholars is whether the Immanuel child in chapter seven the same as the Royal child in chapter nine of Isaiah.  Let me put the matter to rest for you.  Yes, they are one and the same.  Now, finally, you can breathe easier.  Now you know the answer to the age-old question, “What Child is This?  Merry Christmas, people.  You’re welcome, everyone.  What does it mean?  It means that God follows through with his promises.  Isaiah’s words were the gift of hope and promise for Ahaz.  If you focus on the child, Ahaz – on your child – and not on the problems surrounding you, you will endure.  The child is a sign that God is with you from this time forth, even forever. 

How do you think Ahaz responded to God’s gift?  Sadly, with faulty reasoning swimming in his brain, Ahaz declined the gift.  Rather than trusting God’s sign of Immanuel, Ahaz tried to play power politics.  He panicked and sold himself and his people into the service of the biggest bully on the block – the Assyrian king.  Judah became a vassal state. 

Seven centuries later God was preparing to reach down and give the gift again.  This time some people were willing to receive it.  Not all of them, mind you, but some of them.  You know the cast of characters all too well.  You know Mary, barely a teenager when the angel Gabriel visited her with the news that she would conceive and bear a son named Jesus.  It was hardly the perfect gift for an unmarried Jewish peasant girl, but Mary said, Yes, behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.  You know Joseph, Mary’s espoused husband.  When he learned of Mary’s unusual pregnancy, he no more understood nor trusted her story than Ahaz did Isaiah’s words.  Joseph contemplated calling off the marriage.  But unlike Ahaz he decided not to fear, and to receive the child as a gift from God.  You know the shepherds.  We’ve heard how the angels said to them: For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.  Immanuel.  God is with us.  Here was the same invitation to trust and not to fear.  Unlike Ahaz of long ago, they received the gift.  They came in haste to see the child, and went away glorifying God. 

Make of the pageant cast what you will.  If the skeptic in you registers alarm over choirs of angels singing to shepherds, and a star in the sky guiding two or three wise men to Bethlehem, be of good cheer.  Fear not.  You can still celebrate Christmas in all its depth of meaning and glory.  You see, apart from Mary and Joseph, we stake no truth claims whatsoever on who might have peered into the crib of Jesus: be they shepherds, wise men, or even extra-Biblical friendly beasts and a little drummer boy.  Rather, what the Gospel writers Matthew and Luke want us to take from the story is essentially two things: First, that when Mary was great with child, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.  And she brought forth her firstborn son.  At a certain time and place, Jesus was born.  Second, they want us to understand that in the birth of Jesus, God visited us in a unique way.  “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19),” is how St. Paul would phrase it. 

So let’s turn the clock forward again – this time two-thousand years until we reach today.  Today, God is giving the gift of himself again.  Yes, Christmas comes once more, but we needn’t think that it’s only in this season when God comes to us.  By the power of the Spirit, God is available and accessible to us each and every day.  I’m sure you know the unwritten rule of the social climber: always entertain up.  Well, God respects no such rule of engagement.  God entertains down.  God comes down from the heights of transcendent otherness through the mysteries of being and existence to visit humanity.  Down he comes through the dimensions of time and space to dwell among us, so that we could behold his glory.  Down he comes through culture, myth, and prophecy to be born of Mary at a specific time in a certain place.  Down from heaven above to earth he came in the birth of Jesus.  When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, God came down.  Love came down at Christmas.  In Jesus, God humbled himself to be born in our likeness.  God emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. 

The question is, will you accept the gift that God has to offer?  Will you accept the gift of God’s presence?  Of course, we can say no thank you.  People said no thank you to Jesus all the time.  Jesus would know rejection.  St. John records that he came into his own, but his own received him not (1:11).  But he went on to write that as many as received him, to them he gave power to become children of God (1:12). 

At the beginning of the sermon I mentioned that I would tell you about two high and lofty people who reached down to bless me.  The first was Donald E. Petersen.  Now let me tell you about the second.  When I was in elementary school my parents would send my older brother and me to a basketball day camp at Seton Hall University.  The highlight of the week was on Friday, the last day, when Dick Barnett, one of the starting five of the New York Knicks’ championship teams, would visit.  This was the early 1970’s, so I’d see him on TV playing with Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, and other stars.  All week long the buzz was, “Dick Barnett is coming!”  “Work hard, because Dick Barnett is coming.”  When Dick Barnett finally walked into the gymnasium on the last great day, it was as if a god had entered the room.  He would spend hours dazzling us with his ability and teaching us. 

At the end of the day all the campers had the opportunity to have their picture taken with Dick Barnett.  Then Seton Hall would send the photos to your hometown newspaper, and you’d be famous.  When it came to be our turn, my brother and I stood before Dick Barnett quaking in fear.  He was 6’4 – not overly tall by today’s standards – but it seemed as if we only came up to his knee caps.  The photographer was trying to get us to smile or look natural but we were too nervous.  Finally Dick Barnett, star of the world champion New York Knicks who had spent the whole day with us, stooped way, way down to my eye level and said, “Just look at my pretty face.”  I’ll never forget it.  I still have the picture that appeared in the Glen Ridge, NJ paper. 

What we celebrate at Christmas is that through the birth of Jesus, God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, has entered the room of time and space.  God in Christ stooped way, way down to our level.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, from this time forth, even for ever, God says to all of humanity: “Just look at my pretty face.” 

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. 

[print_link]

HOLIDAY JOY?

 The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Third Sunday of Advent
December 15, 2024

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.  Let your gentleness be known to everyone.  The Lord is near.  Do not worry about anything.  (Philippians 4:4-6). 

Last Friday afternoon – just two days ago – I realized that if the Waring family were ever to get our Christmas cards in the mail, I would need to purchase postage stamps.  So I made my way through the Christmas pageant rehearsal that was underway in Tuttle Hall, and across 4^th Avenue to the post office.  The line was not long, and I was quickly at the counter making my order.  I had calculated that to send a card to all of our Grace Church households I would need 300 stamps.  The postal attendant pointed to a chart in front of me offering six different holiday options. 

The first possibility was a stamp entitled “Holiday Joy,” and it depicted a hanging holiday ornament.  The second, called “Winter Whimsy,” showed an art-deco snowflake.  The third was Christmas, portrayed by a classical painting of the Madonna and Child – Mary and Jesus.  Fourth was Hanukkah with a menorah.  Fifth came a dancing family celebrating Kwanzaa.  Finally, a stamp for the Muslim holy day, Eid, that breaks the Ramadan fast.  “Which one do you want?” asked the attendant.  I was not wearing my clerical collar and black shirt, so she could not have known that of the six, only one would suit my purposes.  However, for a nanosecond my impish mind thought what fun it would be to mail our card with a completely unexpected stamp on it, and see if anyone noticed.  Of course, I chose the Christmas stamp, meaning that Mary and Jesus are coming your way. 

The attendant thoroughly counted out the appropriate number of pages with the stamps on them.  Then, to be safe, she counted them again.  As she was ringing me up, she said, “That’s the biggest order of Christmas stamps I’ve had all year.  People look at this one and say, ‘it’s too religious.’  They don’t want it because it’s too religious.”  I smiled and replied, “Well, they are missing out on all the cool stuff.”  She agreed, and wished me a merry Christmas. 

Which stamp do you think St. Paul would have chosen?  We can probably rule out Winter Whimsy, given the climate of Palestine.  Eid would be unknown to Paul, as Islam was still 600 years away from being a thing.  Kwanzaa was even further off in the future.  But what about Hanukkah?  Paul identified as Jewish to the end, and Christmas as a Christian feast didn’t appear on the calendar until the 4^th century.  Nothing Grinchy about it, but Paul was not wishing anyone a Merry Christmas.  A case could be made that he would have chosen Holiday Joy.  Toward the end of his life Paul wrote a letter to the Christians in the city of Philippi.  The letter contains some of the most familiar verses in the Bible, and the selection we heard today is all about joy: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.  Let your gentleness be known to everyone.  The Lord is near.  Do not worry about anything … And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 

Rejoice in the Lord, always.  “Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!”  Today is the Third Sunday of Advent, otherwise known to liturgical nerds like me as Gaudete – Latin for Rejoice.  We light the pink candle of the Advent wreath, and our challenge is to experience and express Holiday Joy.  How goes it for you?  Are you feeling joyful yet?  Are you experiencing the peace of God which surpasses all understanding?  Or are you worried about how you will do all the things you ought to do over the next nine days?  Or did you give up chasing holiday joy years ago?  My guess is that St. Paul would have given a rousing two-cheers to the Holiday Joy stamp.  Two cheers?  Why not three?  Paul would have held back on the third cheer because Holiday Joy does not rest on a firm foundation.  The joy that Paul was writing about is not a baseless thing.  It is always grounded “in the Lord.”  Rejoice in the Lord, is what he wrote.  Don’t overlook the importance of those three little words.  Rejoice in the Lord, because of what God in Christ has done for us and our salvation.  Rejoice in the Lord, because the Lord is near.  Rejoice in the Lord, because God can and will at any time make his presence known. 

Perhaps you are thinking that I am suddenly sounding too religious.  Perhaps you are thinking that it was easy for Paul to say, Rejoice in the Lord.  After all, he was a saint.  Life in Christ came easily for him.  Actually, when Paul wrote to the Philippians he was not in a place of ease and contentment.  He was confined to a Roman prison where he was awaiting trial.  The charges against him had been deliberately orchestrated in Jerusalem.  But rather than taking his chances with the corrupt court there, Paul appealed to Caesar in Rome.  He was sent off to Rome and shipwrecked on the way.  Paul was a man who cared little for creature comforts, but shipwrecks and prison had to make life difficult even for him.  Yet still he was able to say, Rejoice in the Lord.  Paul’s witness tells me that the joy in the Lord he speaks of transcends our present, outward circumstances.  It is not controlled by externals.  It doesn’t rise and fall with how well or how badly your day or your life happens to be going.  You can have the peace of God and joy in the Lord no matter what the circumstances of your life – no matter how much you have, no matter how little you have, no matter who is in your life, no matter who isn’t in your life. 

Joy in the Lord transcends not only a difficult present, but also a painful past.  People find it difficult to rejoice because they look back with regret on the sins and offenses of their youth.  Paul, too, had a past that he easily could have looked back upon with regret, and stewed over for the rest of his life.  Prior to his Damascus Road conversion, Paul was a zealous Pharisee involved in the hunting down and rooting out of Christians.  He approved of and presided over the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr.  Imagine the potential for such a brutal crime to burden Paul’s conscience in his later years.  Imagine the mantle of guilt he could have carried on his shoulders.  Yet still he was able to say, Rejoice in the Lord always.  Paul’s witness tells me something else: that joy in the Lord is able to transcend the sins and the regrets and the heartaches of anyone’s past.  What a shame it is that often we continue to condemn ourselves long after God Himself has forgiven us.  God’s grace is this: no matter where you have been or what you have done, you are not exempt eternally from experiencing God’s peace and joy. 

If we are to take Paul seriously, then we must conclude something more: that joy in the Lord is able to transcend not just our present circumstances and our guilty past, but even the prospect of a bleak future.  Paul was not a young man when he wrote to the Philippians.  With his trial delayed indefinitely, he must have suspected that he would never leave his prison.  To the best of our knowledge, he never did.  Yet he was able to say, Rejoice in the Lord.  Paul’s witness tells me that joy in the Lord is available to us no matter how short, or grim, or uncertain our future is shaping up to be.  So do not worry about anything, is what Paul went on to say.  The Lord is near, he added.  Indeed, a quiet trust in the proposition of God’s near presence was the foundation of St. Paul’s joy.  An awareness of God’s close companionship was why he could rejoice in the Lord always, and urge us to do the same. 

Ah, but there’s that problem again of being too religious.  Would you rather have Holiday Joy?  If so, you don’t need to worry.  Let me offer you two words for Advent, based on today’s readings, to help you rejoice in the Lord without being overly religious.  The first word sounds religious, but turns out to be not so much in the end.  The first word is repent.  Did you hear in the Gospel reading (Luke 3:7-18) how John the Baptist angrily charged the people to bear fruit that is worthy of repentance?  Person after person came up to him and asked, “What should I do?”  Once John got past the bluster of his unquenchable fire and winnowing fork, his reply bore little resemblance to the strictly religious ideas we have of what it means to repent.  Instead of telling the people to go make groveling apologies or burn down their whole lives, John told them to make simple, concrete changes.  Those with two coats can share with those who have none.  Those who have food can do the same.  Tax collectors and soldiers can go about their business honestly.  What do you think John would have told you?  Repentance means turn – turn to a better thing.  We don’t like to hear it, but the truth is this: repentance is a prelude to rejoicing. 

The second word is one that we have a difficult time translating into English.  In Paul’s letter today it has been rendered as gentleness, as in Let your gentleness be known to everyone.  Other versions of the Bible translate the word as moderation, softness, kindness, reasonableness, and mildness.  Sad to say, moderate and gentle are not adjectives that would describe our society these days.  Instead of moderation we think joy is to be found in the uncompromising extremes.  Instead of gentleness, we seek to find joy in competitiveness, or toughness.  Instead of kindness, we think meanness will lead to rejoicing.  Guess what?  It’s not working!  These attitudes are poisonous to joy.  But imagine how our society, and how your life and mine would be different if we each sought to outdo one another in works of kindness and gentleness.  We would find ourselves walking in the footsteps of Jesus, along the pathway to God’s peace and joy.  Let your gentleness be known to all, so that by your very presence, they suspect the Lord is near. 

If St. Paul remains too remote and religious a figure for you, you might consider the words and witness of someone more contemporary.  Alexei Navalny was the Russian opposition leader who opposed Putin’s corrupt regime, gave up his freedom, and died in prison earlier this year.  Recently, Navalny’s memoirs have been published posthumously.  The book is entitled Patriot, and it consists of diary entries and reflections on his three years of imprisonment.  His notebooks had to be smuggled out of the prison or they never would have seen the light of day.  Navalny’s words are pertinent for Advent, and the anxious times in which we live.  He can help us prepare the way of the Lord, and make straight in our souls a highway for God.  He writes:

I have always thought and said openly that being a believer makes it easier to live your life and, to an even greater extent, engage in opposition politics.  Faith makes life simpler.  Ask yourself whether you are a Christian in your heart of hearts.  It is not essential for you to believe that some old guys in the desert once lived to be eight-hundred years old, or that the sea was literally parted in front of someone.  But are you a disciple of the religion whose founder sacrificed himself for others, paying the price for their sins?  Do you believe in the immortality of the soul and the rest of that cool stuff?  If you can honestly answer yes, what is there left for you to worry about?  Don’t worry about the morrow, because the morrow is perfectly capable of taking care of itself. 

 My job is to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and leave it to good old Jesus and the rest of his family to deal with everything else.  They won’t let me down and will sort out all my headaches.  As they say in prison here: they will take my punches for me.[1]  

Dear People of Grace Church: good old Jesus, along with Mary, and the rest of his family are coming to you.  Over the next nine days, I do wish you Holiday Joy.  But even more, I pray that God gives you the grace to Rejoice in the Lord always, and to let your gentleness be known to everyone.  Remember, the Lord is near, so do not worry about anything.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 

[1] The excerpt is found in “Prison Diaries,” The New Yorker, October 21, 2024, p. 40.

[print_link]

HIGHWAY TO HELL

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Second Sunday of Advent
December 8, 2024

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.  (Baruch 5:1)

Last Tuesday I read a news article about an unthinkable tragedy that occurred just over a year and a half ago.  It was April 28, 2023, the wedding day of a south Carolina couple named Samantha Miller and Aric Hutchinson.  The day was supposed to be the happiest of their life, and for five hours it was.  In fact, in the midst of the celebration, the bride remarked that she wished it would never end.  When the time came for them to leave the reception, the newly married husband and wife, along with two others from the bridal party, climbed aboard a specially decorated golf cart, for the short ride to the next event. 

Suddenly, a car came careening down the road at 65 mph – 40 mph faster than the posted speed limit.  The car slammed into the back of the golf cart with deadly force, killing Samantha Miller and seriously injuring the three other riders.  The driver of the car, Jamie Lee Komoroski, was drunk, with a blood-alcohol level of more than three times the legal limit.  She was arrested, finally pled guilty, and last week sentenced to 25 years in prison.  The bride’s father, a man named Brad Warner, had this to say to Komoroski in his impact statement before the sentencing: “For the rest of my life I’m going to hate you.  And when I arrive in hell and you come there, I’m going to open the door for you.” 

I do not presume to judge Brad Warner.  The burden of his grief and pain must be intolerable.  But upon reading his words it struck me that he is quite clear about three things, at least.  First, he knows that hatred is the highway to hell.  Second, he knows that he himself is on it.  Third, he seems to confess that he will be powerless to prevent himself from arriving at the road’s inevitable, grim destination.  What can be done, what can be said to  help him off the highway to hell? 

In today’s first reading, we heard from Baruch (5:1-9), a mysterious figure in the Hebrew prophetic tradition.  Who is Baruch?  The fact is, we don’t really know.  It could be that he was a scribe of the prophet Jeremiah, who preached during the Babylonian exile.  All we can say for sure is that when the time came to close the canon of the Old Testament, and declare that certain books were in and others were out, Baruch didn’t make the cut.  We have thirty-nine books in the Old Testament, including major and minor prophets.  Then we have something called the Apocrypha.  What is the Apocrypha?  Well, if the books of the Bible were an NFL roster, you can think of the Apocrypha as the practice squad.  Players on the practice squad obviously have some skills, but also some serious flaws in their game.  You will rarely see them suited up on a Sunday.  Baruch is in the Apocrypha.  Baruch is on the practice squad.  But here he is on Sunday, not only in uniform, but on the playing field.  What does he have to say?  Baruch would say this to Brad Warner and any others full of anger and rage: Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.  Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting. 

What do you think of Baruch’s counsel?  To me, on first reading, it reminds me of the song by Bobby McFerrin: Don’t worry, be happy.  Here’s a little song I wrote.  You might want to sing it note for note.  Don’t worry, be happy.  Don’t worry.  Cheer up.  Always look on the bright side of life, is what Baruch seems to be saying.  Is that all that Baruch has to offer?  No, his words run much deeper than an admonishment to put on a happy face.  To those who were conquered, those whose daughters and sons were carried away into exile, Baruch encourages them to take the long view.  No one is lost in the kingdom of God.  God forgets no one.  What is more, God is planning a reunion: Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height; look toward the east, and see your children gathered from west and east, at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them.  For they went out from you on foot, led away by their enemies; but God will bring them back to you, carried in glory, as on a royal throne.  Baruch is reminding his community and us too that God’s love always wins out over the powers of evil.  For this reason we can take off the garment of our sorrow and affliction.  For this reason we can rejoice. 

Surely, we can take comfort in the promise of a future, joyful reunion with those we have loved and lost.  But in the meantime, the temptation to get on the highway to hell can be almost irresistible.  Full confession: last week I realized that I myself was taking steps along the road that leads to no good end.  This fall we’ve had a series of overnight brazen break-ins at Grace Church.  It’s been the same thing, twice, involving the exterior scaffolding.  I can’t give you any more details because the police are investigating.  After the first incident we installed an elaborate security system with a surveillance camera.  So the second time we were able to see the three perpetrators.  And one was a villain, and one was a vandal, and the third must have been a Visigoth.  A Visigoth?  What does a Visigoth look like?  Well, this one was an overstuffed guy with a bad hairdo and an ill-fitting leather jacket.  He looked like a Visigoth to me.  Fortunately, the villain, vandal, and Visigoth took nothing of value, except for my faith in the goodness of human nature.  It was a very small thing to begin with – smaller even than a mustard seed.  I don’t know how they found it, but they did. 

In addition to these old-style break-ins, I’ve glimpsed other threats we face.  A few weeks ago we invited the church’s I.T. professional to visit our staff meeting and review the latest in online security.  The consultant opened his laptop and showed us a screen that was recording the number of outside hits to our router.  These were not friendly visitors to our website, but hackers – BOTS – bombarding our firewall with hundreds of different passwords every minute.  The number stunned me.  Here we are, trying to restore what moth and rust have corrupted, and all the while thieves are trying to break in a steal.  We are trying to build up, they are trying to tear down.  I found myself growing in hatred.  I indulged in the scenario of coming face to face with these hackers and hooligans.  Every time I did, I realized I was taking another willing step along the highway to hell. 

So it was that I realized I was out of sorts with the things that are supposed to be most dear to me: the promises we all make in the Baptismal Covenant, and my ordination vows, just to name two.  I needed something more than Baruch’s future oriented promises of justice and restoration.  I needed what we hear about today in the Gospel of Luke (3:1-6) – what John called “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  How does one go about obtaining a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins?  Let me tell you what I did.  Last Sunday I came to church.  You’re thinking, “Not a big deal, Don.  Of course you came to church.  You’re the rector.  You’re paid to come to church.”  Right you are.  But last Sunday, having been out on Broadway with the NYPD at 2:30 am the night before, I didn’t just come to church.  Rather, I let church come to me.  I decided to immerse my spirit in everything the church has to offer.  Fun fact: “to immerse” is the meaning of the verb, to baptize. 

I immersed myself in church to uproot the hatred that was growing in my soul.  It wasn’t long into the 9 am service before I encountered the Word.  I wasn’t preaching last week, so I could listen to the reading from the Gospel of Luke as if for the first time.  In Advent we hear the strange, apocalyptic readings about the second coming of Jesus, in power and great glory.  Luke (21:25-36) records Jesus himself urging his followers to be ready: Be alert at all times, praying that you have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.  We had begun with the majestic hymn, “Lo, he comes with clouds descending.”  Once verse of the hymn includes the warning,

Those who set at naught and sold him,
pierced and nailed him to the tree,
deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
shall the true Messiah see. 

The hymn has always been my very favorite in all the Hymnal.  The funny thing is, I had always assumed it would be other people who were deeply wailing.  But the hymn and the reading put me on notice.  The wailing could be mine if I didn’t get off the highway to hell. 

Then came the Eucharist.  Thanks be to God, our redemption does not come to us by way of our own merits or effort.  It’s not just a matter of saying, “Oh, I’m walking along a bad path here.  I’d better amend my ways.”  Sometimes we are powerless to amend our ways.  It is the power of God that gives us strength to escape the road to perdition.  It is the life of Christ, given to us through bread and wine, that emboldens us to follow Jesus, rather than the devices and desires of our own hearts.  And so it was last week at the altar, reading the words of the Eucharistic prayer, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ struck me as seldom before.  Imagine: we and all God’s whole church are made one body with Jesus, so that he may dwell in us and we in him.  Indeed, St. Paul would write that filled with the Spirit of Christ, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13,” and also, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20).” 

So the Word and the Sacrament conspired to bring about a good work in me.  Finally, it was this Christian community, gathered together in Jesus’ name, that restored me to my right perspective.  At coffee hour after the 11 am service, a number of families and individuals were working on Advent wreathes.  The Advent wreath is a lovely custom that encourages us to count the weeks till the arrival of Jesus, the true light that is coming into the world.  But an Advent wreath is also a subversive thing.  As much as it is about the advance of light, it also proclaims the demise of darkness.  The good people of Grace Church thought they were simply making Advent wreathes.  Little did they know that with every branch of evergreen wrapped about the base of a candle, they were putting the darkness on notice.  The message is, “time is running out, and soon the time will be up for evil and death.”  The urgent summons to you and me is to be alert and ready, so that we can be among those singing Alleluia, and not among those deeply wailing. 

I heard a funny little story recently, somewhat in the vein of C.S. Lewis and the Screwtape Letters.  It seems that Satan was trying to devise a plan to corrupt the people of New York City, and completely possess their souls.  Lacking just the right idea, the devil consulted with three of his demonic understudies.  The first said, “Let me go talk to them.  I will convince them that there is no heaven.  They’ll fall into despair, and cease striving after the moral life.  They’ll be all yours.”  Satan thought for a moment and then concluded, “No, that won’t work.  They know there’s a heaven.  They have too many foretastes of it already.  They live in the greatest city in the world.  They have Central Park.  They have the best pizza on earth.  They have Broadway musicals with big tap dance numbers that can go on for 15 minutes.  They know what heaven is like.” 

The second demon proposed this: “Let me go talk to them.  I’ll convince them that there is no hell.  With no fear of consequences, they’ll run wild and live immoral lives.  They’ll be all yours.”  Again, Satan thought for a moment, and then concluded, “It’s a good idea, but it won’t work.  They know there’s a hell.  They have the New York Giants.  They have the New York Jets.  They have Broadway musicals with big tap dance numbers that can go on for 15 minutes.  They know what hell is like.” 

Finally, the third demon proposed a truly novel idea.  “Let me go talk to them.  I’ll convince them there is no hurry.  The hatreds they are harboring and the grudges they are nursing – they’ll have time enough tomorrow to repent.  There is no hurry.”  Satan nodded his head approvingly and said, “Perfect.  Go and tell them that there is no hurry.” 

My friends, it is not for nothing today that we sing:

Lo! the Lamb so long expected,
comes with pardon down from heaven. 
Let us haste with tears of sorrow,
one and all to be forgiven.