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CITIZENS OF HEAVEN

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Second Sunday in Lent
March 16, 2025

Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us … Our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.  (Philippians 3:17, 20)

In today’s reading from his letter to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul urges us to observe – even imitate – those who are living Christ-like lives.  Who are they?  Well, with all the modesty he could muster, Paul admitted that one of them was himself.  “Join in imitating me, because I am imitating Jesus,” might be fair paraphrase of what he meant.  “Hey, look at me,” he might have added. 

Someone else who comes to mind is closer to home for us, and a good bit more contemporary than Paul.  In fact, we have a magnificent portrait of her hanging in the reception room.  Of course, I’m talking about Catherine Lorillard Wolfe.  In 1846, when Grace Church opened the doors of this building for the first time, Catherine was 18-years old and lived at 744 Broadway.  Her father was on the vestry of Trinity Church downtown, but with Grace Church now only two blocks away, he decided to transfer the family membership to this parish.  Thus began a remarkable record of Christian service through the church.  When her parents died, Catherine inherited enormous wealth from both sides of the family, and she took great pleasure in sharing her bounty.  In her own words, she regarded her inheritance as a sacred trust “to be administered in the fear of God and for the benefit of humanity.”  She built churches, hospitals, and schools throughout the world. 

Catherine had two favorite charities: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Grace Church.  Listen to a partial list of what she did for us.  She gave all the funds necessary to build and furnish the Parish House on the north side of the church, and the chantry on the south side.  Both buildings are still in constant use today.  The high altar, reredos, and Te Deum stained glass window at the east end of the church were her gift.  The first chancel organ came from her, as did the land on 4^th Avenue upon which Grace Church School buildings now stand.  Perhaps most noticeable of all, when it was time to replace the old wooden spire with one made of stone, she gave the crucial gift to make it happen.  Still today, the spire points to the skies, and reminds us that our citizenship is in heaven.  “Look up,” is what it insists to all who pass by on Broadway.  Apparently, one day in the early 1880s, Henry Codman Potter, the Rector of Grace Church, was telling a fellow rector all that Catherine Lorillard Wolfe was doing here, including the spire.  The other rector sighed, and then he declared, “How I wish I had such a wolf in my fold.” 

In today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke (13:31-35), we encounter not a wolf in the fold, but a fox in the hen house – not someone building up the kingdom of God, but someone devouring God’s people.  Luke writes: Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”  He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.’”  When Jesus called Herod “that fox,” it was not a compliment.  But why the name calling, and who was Herod, anyway?  Note well, the Herod whom Luke writes about today was not Herod the Great, King of the Jews when Jesus was born.  No, today we meet Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great.  Herod Antipas was never granted his father’s title, King of the Jews.  Instead, he was the Tetrarch of Galilee, in charge of the agrarian region well north of Jerusalem. 

In the Gospels, Herod Antipas comes across as a self-serving, corrupt, and even debauched individual.  Three incidents give us progressively deeper windows into his soul.  The first would be his treatment of women.  Herod was married to an Arab princess, but he took an unholy liking to his half-brother’s wife, a woman named Herodias.  With his heart set on his sister-in-law, Herod divorced his wife and sent her back to her kingly father.  Then he began wooing Herodias, eventually convincing her to leave her husband – Herod’s half-brother – and marry him.  Guess what Herodias’ ex-husband’s name was.  Would you believe Herod II?  You need a scorecard to keep them all straight, and I’m only skimming the surface. 

The second window into the soul of Herod Antipas concerns John the Baptist, a cousin of Jesus.  John was a Galilean prophet preaching in the wilderness, and when he learned of the illicit union between Herod and Herodias, he railed against the whole family.  Herodias didn’t like it, so she devised a scheme to get rid of John.  To celebrate his birthday, Herod hosted a lavish banquet in his own honor, and invited many guests.  Herodias had a daughter from her previous marriage, a young woman named Salome, presumably the niece of Antipas, and now his step-daughter.  Herodias arranged for Salome to do a provocative dance at the banquet.  All the men were gratified, most especially Herod Antipas: her uncle, now her step-father.  How sick is that?  As a reward Herod promised to give Salome anything, up to half his kingdom.  Herodias advised her daughter to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter.  Herod gave the order and John was slain. 

The third widow opens only briefly, but perhaps the view it provides of Herod’s soul is the most telling of all.  It occurs later on in the Gospel of Luke (23:6-12), at the trial of Jesus after his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.  You may recall that the Roman soldiers first brought Jesus to Pontius Pilate for questioning, but when Pilate learned that Jesus was a Galilean, he sent him over to Herod, who was staying in Jerusalem at the time.  Herod was surprised, but pleased.  He’d long heard about Jesus, and hoped that one day the miracle worker might perform a little magic show just for him.  You see, once again from Herod’s point of view, life was all a great quest to fulfill his own desires.  Thus Jesus, brought before him, was merely an opportunity to satisfy his curiosity.  But when he questioned Jesus at length, Jesus spoke not a word.  He refused to dignify the questions with a response.  I was amused by one commentator, who stated the obvious about the passage: “It’s a bad sign when Jesus says nothing.”[1]  It was a sign that Jesus did not like Herod, “that fox,” at all. 

This brings me back to today’s reading from Philippians.  When Paul encouraged his readers to find good Christian role models to observe and imitate, clearly, the likes of Herod Antipas were not on his list.  Herod was no citizen of heaven.  He was a fickle, corrupt, narcissistic creature of the earth.  Herod was an embarrassment to the Jews, whose calling it was to be a light to enlighten the nations.  We can only imagine how deflating it must have been to have a person of such low moral character as their government official.  Beware of following the example of Herod and others like him, warned Paul in the strongest possible terms: Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; their glory is their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 

Likewise, witness how decisively Jesus moved on from Herod, as if not to grant him rent-free space in his mind: Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way.  Jesus had a mission to fulfill, and it was not to die in Galilee under Herod, as did his cousin, John the Baptist.  It was to go to Jerusalem, confront the ruling powers, and offer his life there.  He said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!  How often have I desired to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”  The image of the protecting mother hen was a scene that would have been familiar to many in the agrarian Galilean countryside.  Then as now wild, hungry foxes seek to ravage barnyard chicken coops.  If a fox breaks into a hen house it’s a terrifying sight.  Apparently, a mother hen will try to shield her chicks from the fox by gathering them under her wings.  The chicks are hard to corral, and the hen will invariably die in the effort.  She stands firm against the fox, and gives her life for her young. 

Jesus knew that he was going to die in Jerusalem.  Mother hens seldom, if ever, survive when the fox attacks.  Her only instinctual hope, I suppose, is that if the fox takes her it will leave her young alone.  Jesus seems to have understood that his death would be saving in a similar way.  By going to Jerusalem he would absorb into himself the full blast of what sin could render.  When he stretched out his arms on the hard wood of the cross, he would offer himself, in obedience to God’s will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.  St. Paul would go so far as to suggest that we join in imitating those who live according to the cross of Christ.  Look to those who are offering themselves, not serving themselves.  Look to those who aspire to be citizens of heaven.  Look not to those who are base creatures of the earth, gratifying their own lust for power. 

“Join in imitating me,” said St. Paul, who implied that he was imitating Jesus.  Or, if St. Paul is too remote a figure for you, join in imitating Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, who gave generously of herself to build up the kingdom of God and benefit humanity.  But even she, whose blessings we still enjoy today, lived long ago, having died in 1887.  Someone else, then, whose story is familiar to many people still alive today, is Jonathan Daniels, who was an Episcopal seminarian and civil rights activist.  He, too, can show us what it looks like to be a citizen of heaven.  Just sixty years ago this month, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, Daniels witnessed on television the violent suppression of peaceful marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.  Later that evening the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. went on air and urged students to come to Selma and join the non-violent protests against racial segregation.  By the next Thursday, Daniels was on the bus headed south, and he was there on March 17 – sixty years ago tomorrow – for the successful march across the bridge. 

Jonathan Daniels recognized that one march across one bridge was hardly the end of the struggle.  Thus, he stayed on in Alabama, recruiting African Americans to vote for the first time, integrating churches and stores, and exposing the injustices that were all too common in the deep south.  In August he was arrested with a large group of others who were picketing a whites-only store.  For nearly a week they were held in squalid conditions, until finally being released into the brutal heat of the Alabama summer.  Daniels and three others walked to a local store to buy something cool to drink.  As they approached the screened door, Daniels was with a young Black woman who had also been detained – 17-year old Ruby Sales.  Before opening the door a man on the other side leveled a shotgun at them, and threatened that if they came in, he’d blow off their heads. 

Instantly recognizing the gravity of the situation, Daniels pushed Ruby Sales out of the way, and she fell to the ground.  The man inside the store fired the gun through the door, and Daniels took the full blast of the shotgun to his chest.  He died instantly.  He gave his life so that another might live.  Like a mother hen standing between the fox and her brood, he absorbed the evil into himself. 

Jonathan Daniels, Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, St. Paul the Apostle – each of these in his or her own way aspired to be citizens of heaven, even in the time of this mortal life.  They are worthy of observing and imitating.  My prayer is that the Spirit of the living God who dwelled in them, also burns brightly in us and shines through us.  Let the spire of our magnificent church ever raise our sights and standards, so that we too may follow Jesus, along the way that leads to eternal life. 

[1] Leslie Weatherhead, Personalities of the Passion, Hodder and Stoughton, p. 52.

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THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE

 The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The First Sunday in Lent
March 9, 2025

After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.  (Luke 4:1-2) 

Some time ago I was reading a psychology journal that included the case study of a man who is now in his late 40s.  Robert’s most vivid childhood memory is of a rainy Saturday afternoon when he was eight years old.  He was an only child, and none of his friends were around, so he was stuck in the house all day.  His parents had argued that morning, and stormed off in their own directions.  Now his mother was upstairs, and his father was off somewhere in the car.  From Robert’s point of view, it would be just another day for him to occupy himself.  His parents frequently fought, and were too distracted to pay much attention to his schedule. 

Robert – or, Bobby, as he was known in those days – decided to play basketball.  He would be Magic Johnson, and his opponents would be the dining room chairs.  To inbound the ball, Bobby bounced it off an empty section of dining room wall.  Unfortunately, he mishandled the pass.  The ball slipped through his fingers and shattered an antique vase on the dining room table.  Bobby’s mother heard the crash, rushed downstairs, gasped in horror at the broken family heirloom, and proceeded to give him the tongue-lashing of his young life.  Bobby spent the rest of the day quarantined to his room.  He remembers his parents revving up into another argument over dinner that very night.  Just a few days later his mother and father explained to him that they would be getting a divorce. 

Bobby began assembling the facts of his newly-fractured life as well as any eight-year old could piece them together.  Despite the assurances of his parents, his school counselors, and his relatives that everyone loved him, he quietly came to a terrible conclusion that he could not shake from his mind: he was the cause of the strife.  His misbehavior, his parents’ hushed conversations behind closed doors, pictures of his parents as a happy young couple before he was born, and finally, symbolically, the smashed family heirloom could not lie.  The story of his life was that he was the difference-maker, and not in a good way.  He was to blame for the breaking of his home. 

Today’s passage from the Gospel of Luke reads almost like a case study in a psychology journal.  The person working to sort out the story of his life would be Jesus.  We tend to think that Jesus had his life all figured out, right from the start, almost as if, as a newborn infant, he thought to himself, “Aha, I’ve tricked them all.  They think I’m a baby, but I’m actually God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, of one Being with the Father.”  In truth, the Gospels give us a much more realistic narrative of a long, slow process by which Jesus came to grips with his identity.  Just before today’s reading, Luke describes Jesus as about thirty years of age.  What was Jesus doing before beginning his public ministry?  We don’t know.  The best assumption is that he was working in the family carpentry business in Nazareth.  There he would be immersed in the rituals of his people, and he would study the Scriptures.  All around him would be speculation about the coming of God’s Messiah.  When would God send the redeemer to rescue the Jews from oppression?  What sort of mighty king, or warrior, or prophet would be the one who came in the name of the Lord? 

The genius of Jesus is that he recognized something no one else did.  The Messiah would not be a triumphant warrior, but a suffering servant.  In the prophecies of Isaiah (52:13 – 53:12), Jesus would read of a mysterious figure, sent from God, who would offer his life for the sins of the people.  The death of the servant would restore fellowship with God.  Not only did Jesus make the connection between the Messiah and the suffering servant, he was coming to the agonizing conclusion that his great vocation would be to fulfill the prophecies.  His mission and ministry would be to lay down his life as an offering and sacrifice to God. 

We can imagine the internal, external, and ongoing voices trying to lure Jesus off his divine path, to tempt him with a different story for his life.  Internally, he would wrestle with the wisdom of giving up his perfectly good life.  Why not stay in the carpenter’s shop and make useful things?  Or become a baker and feed people loaves of bread.  Externally, the voices of his people would speak common, worldly sense: that only military might or political skill could oust the Roman occupiers and bring glory back to Israel.  Why not try on the robes of worldly authority to see if they fit, and muscle the kingdom of God into being through force of will?  Or, if a public death is the Messiah’s fate, why not throw yourself from the pinnacle of the Temple in a spectacular gesture no one will miss?  Now that would be a death worth remembering.  “If dying is what you want to do, get on with it,” is how the temptation might have run in his mind.  Such were the inner and external voices that tempted Jesus.  In teaching his disciples who he was, and how he came to embrace his role as the Messiah, he would ascribe the tempting voices to the devil.  Yes, he would resist the wiles of the devil.  But Luke implies that the temptation to take on a different – dare we say, wrong – story for his life was ongoing.  The devil departed until an opportune time.  The devil would return. 

So, here we are on the First Sunday in Lent, once again in heart and mind going off into the wilderness with Jesus to square off against the devil and temptation.  The Gospel of Luke presents us with a portrait of Jesus that is more human, more down to earth than what we see in Matthew, Mark, or John.  Thus, in Luke, Jesus is not only our savior, but also our example: not only our redeemer, but also our pattern.  In his struggles we see our own struggles.  In his temptations, we see our own temptations. 

What do you make of the devil?  Well, you can make of the devil what you will, but I see our ancient foe as a worker of deception – a twister of the truth – who ruins lives with a cunning manipulation of the facts.  Think of the devil as any or all of the voices that tempt you to make the wrong assumptions about yourself, and buy into the wrong story of your life.  What Jesus resisted in the desert was believing the wrong story for his life.  What Robert, as an eight-year old, had no power to resist was assuming that all the family strife was his fault.  It was not the truth.  It was a lie.  Yet once it attached itself to him it worked secretly and silently to unravel his life, almost like a virus brings down a computer.  In later years Robert was conflicted by an inability to trust on the one hand, and the fear of being deserted on the other hand.  It was only after his own marriage failed that Robert realized he was possessed – actually possessed – by the wrong story.  It was time to change the narrative and resist the devil’s deception. 

All of us can fall victim to the wrong stories for our lives.  What wrong stories?  My guess is that from the devil’s standpoint, any old wrong story will do, just so long as it prevents you from growing into the full stature of Christ.  You may think too lowly of yourself, as one unworthy of God’s love, forgiveness, or even attention.  Everything is your fault.  Such voices deflate any notion that we are children of God with a divine purpose and calling.  You may think too highly of yourself, as one smarter, holier, and frankly just more valuable than the average garden variety sinner muddling through life.  Nothing is your fault.  Such voices inflate our egos, as if we ourselves arose from the dust of the earth, and may be able to cut a deal so as not to return. 

How do we resist the errant voices that lead us astray?  Perhaps an example from nature may prove instructive.  The clam is a mollusk with two identical shells that it holds together with one, large powerful muscle.  The major predator of the clam is the starfish.  Muscle for muscle, the clam is the stronger of the two creatures.  The starfish has no muscle as strong as the clam’s.  Nevertheless, the starfish has five arms, or legs, or appendages with many smaller muscles that it alternately rests and exerts when taking hold of a clam with its suction cups.  At first the clam easily resists the pressure on its one large muscle.  It is low-level, but unyielding.  In time, the clam grows exhausted and unable to hold its shells closed any longer.  The starfish wins, merely by its constant assault.  Likewise, the barrage of lies that sin, the world, and the devil tell have the tendency to exhaust the powers of truth that try resist them.  We see it happening on every level of society, from international affairs to our own private spiritual struggles.  The more you hear something, the more it must be true, no matter how outrageous the claim. 

What the Christian faith says is that the way of the clam is not the way of Jesus.  To put on the full armor of God requires something completely other than one, big muscular effort.  We become conquerors not by our own strength, but only through Christ, who loves us.  Jesus didn’t go out into the wilderness under his own steam, but rather “full of the Holy Spirit,” and “led by the Spirit.”  We, too, have access to the Spirit, who gives us power to become children of God. 

One way we encounter the Spirit of God is through the gathered community of God’s faithful people.  In today’s Old Testament reading, we heard in the book the Book of Deuteronomy (26:1-11) how Israel was about to enter the Promised Land.  Before proceeding, Moses had many instructions to the people for how to remember the truth of who and whose they were, and how to counter the delusions they might be tempted to believe about themselves.  Tell and re-tell the true story of how you came to possess the land, charged Moses.  Remember that your forebears were drifting nomads: A wandering Aramean was my ancestor.  Remember that you found yourselves enslaved, oppressed, and humiliated in Egypt.  Remember that it was the Lord who heard your cry, rescued you, and brought you out of there.  It is not by your own strength or force of will that you have come into this place, but by the grace of God.  It is a free gift.  Here then, for a people much tempted to forget the Lord – much tempted in the direction of self-reliance – was a call to remember God’s version of the story.  The grace of God was the story of their life. 

Indeed, God’s version of my life, and your life, is what we seek to hear during Lent.  We hear it in the rituals of this gathered community.  We hear it in the Word spoken by the prophets in the Scriptures.  We hear it in the Word made flesh, Jesus himself offered to us in the Sacrament of bread and wine.  Being restored to the image of Christ doesn’t happen all at once.  For us, and for Robert, it is a lifelong process.  The devil does, indeed, return at opportune times.  But those who call on the name of the Lord, and rely on his strength, will be saved. 

Welcome to Lent.  We talk about giving things up during Lent.  I would suggest that a spiritual need for all of us would be to give up some of the wrong stories we carry with us – to give up the inflated views of ourselves, or perhaps the deflated views of ourselves, and allow the truth of God’s love and grace to supplant them.  I read recently of a young woman who had been going to therapy for years, apparently accomplishing very little.  She came to think of herself as psychologically incurable, which became a strange sort of comfort because at least it made her something.  Finally she went to a new therapist who said to her, “For me, you are a new client, and I don’t believe you are as sick as you think you are.  Let’s begin today.”  Sadly, the woman didn’t go back because she didn’t want to give up the story of her life she’d come to believe, no matter how wrong it was. 

Whoever “they” are, they say that the best time to plant a tree was twenty-five years ago.  The second best time is today.  Likewise, the best time to call on the name of the Lord might have been yesterday.  But the second best time is today. 

Let’s begin today.  Let’s begin this Lent. 

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THE WAY THINGS OUGHT TO BE

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Last Sunday after the Epiphany
March 2, 2025

And while (Jesus) was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.  (Luke 9:29)

Every so often, you or someone you know, might have an experience that leaves you strangely uneasy: an experience that challenges your assumptions about life and existence, that causes you to rethink your take on the way things really are.  The late Madeleine L’Engle was a celebrated author of spiritual autobiography, and most especially children’s books, including A Wrinkle in Time.  As a faithful Christian she was always alert for such moments when God broke into the mundane, when heaven and earth overlapped, when otherwise ordinary times became extraordinary. 

In one of her meditations, entitled Setter and Swallow, L’Engle writes of a dog named Timothy.  Timothy was a red Irish setter who came to L’Engle and her family as an adult, already 3 ½ years old.  Sadly, Timothy had been abused for much of his life, and by the time the family took him in, he was a neurotic, fearful creature.  He cowered in the presence of people, and crawled from place to place on his belly, hoping not to receive a beating.  Slowly, Timothy learned to trust the love that his new household offered him in abundance.  He stood up on four feet and walked about the house.  He chose a favorite chair for himself.  After a year he even began to wag his tail. 

L’Engle describes how one summer, while living in rural Connecticut, they noticed that Timothy had developed a peculiar friendship with a swallow.  She writes:

Timothy will rush out to the big meadow, his once timid tail waving ecstatically.  He looks adoringly up at the sky, wagging, listening, and the swallow comes to him, flying very low, and then Tim will run along with the bird while it flies, back and forth, round and about, in great parabolas, all over the big meadow.  Then the swallow will fly off and up, and Tim will stand looking upward, swishing his tail, and waiting for his friend to return.  It has been a great joy to us to watch this amazing friendship.  Day after day they play together, and the game never palls. … The two of them are lion and lamb together for me, a foretaste of Isaiah’s vision.  When I watch them playing together in the green and blue, it is a moment of transfiguration. 

In today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke (9:28-43a), we hear of one such moment in the life of Jesus known as the Transfiguration.  Luke writes how Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.  And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.  Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking with him.  Then they heard a voice from a cloud that enveloped them, identifying Jesus to be God’s chosen Son.  “Listen to him,” said the voice.  Are we to interpret the text literally?  How did the disciples know who was appearing with Jesus?  Did Moses and Elijah wear nametags?  We don’t know.  Matthew and Mark also record the same event, setting forth largely the same details, agreeing that it was a moment in history, not a dream.  For Peter, James, and John, and then all of the earliest Christians, the Transfiguration took hold of their imaginations as a revelation of great spiritual significance.  It would be an understatement to say that the experience left them strangely uneasy. 

What did it mean?  Quite frankly, it seems that the Transfiguration challenged their assumptions about Jesus.  They saw Jesus for who he really was – and is.  No longer could they regard him as merely a prophet or preacher.  He was more than a teacher, a miracle worker, or a revolutionary.  Jesus was the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.  The great story that God had been telling the world for centuries through Israel was coming to a climax in Jesus.  This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him! 

The experience of the Transfiguration not only enlarged the disciple’s understanding of Jesus, it also challenged their assumptions of life and existence, and caused them to rethink their take on the way things really are.  You see, over time, as they reflected on their experience of witnessing Jesus’ shining in heavenly light, enjoying perfect communion with God, they surmised that they had caught a fleeting glimpse of what human life was supposed to be like.  Here in Jesus was human nature as it would have been were it not for the fall from grace.  Here was humanity as God intended it: not expelled from the garden, not smeared with sin, not cut off from God, but restored to the place where lion and lamb play together.  It was just a fleeting glimpse, but in that glimpse, they experienced the shock of recognition.  They recognized who they were supposed to be.  They remembered something they had never known.  As such, the moment was a paradox. 

How do you remember something you have never known?  When I hear the story of the Transfiguration, and the disciples’ puzzling to make sense of it, I think of the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen called The Ugly Duckling.  You and I who have heard the story many times know what the duckling does not know: that’s he’s not a duckling at all, but a swan.  Nevertheless, because he is large and different from all the ducks, the ugly duckling is abused and finally driven from home.  He spends a lonely winter on a frozen pond, but then a strange thing happens to the lost little bird.  A flock of beautiful large birds appears out of the bushes.  They are dazzling white with long wavy necks, and they soar higher and faster than anything the little duckling has ever seen.  They are full-grown swans, and upon seeing them the ugly duckling becomes strangely uneasy.  He swims round and round in a circle, and calls back to them in their own voice.  The sight of the swans ignites something deep with the breast of the little bird.  He remembers something he had not yet known.  It was the shock of recognition that he was created to soar higher, and rise above the pecking throng of ducks that had held him down. 

Likewise, the Transfiguration should make us strangely uneasy.  For the disciples it was just a glimpse.  The experience didn’t last for them.  Neither do these moments last for us, leaving our deepest longing for communion with God ignited yet unfulfilled.  Luke tells us how quickly the moment passed.  The next day, when Jesus and the disciples had come down from the mountain, they were surrounded by a demanding crowd, including a man whose son was possessed by a demon.  It was back to the valley: back to the world of sickness, suffering, and death.  In her piece Setter and Swallow, Madeleine L’Engle writes of a quick descent back to the valley of the shadow of death.  One day she and her family were entertaining guests who had brought their own little dog along with them.  Timothy was out in the meadow at play with the swallow.  When the other dog saw what was going on, he too wanted to join in the fun.  He raced across the meadow, only to receive a menacing physical rebuff from Timothy.  Perhaps Timothy didn’t want to share his private experience.  Perhaps he was protecting the swallow from another dog.  In any case, blood was drawn, even if it was just a scratch on the little dog.  L’Engle writes, It was not a tragedy, but suddenly we were in a fallen world again.  It was no longer lion and lamb in peace and amity.  It was the world of battlefields and slums and insane asylums. 

Such is the surly world in which we live: a land where the fierce devour the small.  How do we rise above it?  The first human to slip the surly bonds of earth and travel in space was the Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin.  Upon returning from his historic flight in 1961 the Soviet propaganda machine reported that Gagarin had proclaimed he had seen no sign of God up there.  The fact is, Gagarin was a faithful Christian and never said anything of the sort (imagine: the Kremlin told a lie).  A Russian Orthodox priest rebuked the spurious claims of Red Square by saying that if you see no sign of God on earth, neither will you will see any sign of God in the heavens.  His point was that God reveals himself not only on the mountaintops, not only in visions of dazzling light and heavenly glory, but also in the ordinary, everyday occurrences of life down here in the valley.  Our calling is to be alert to the presence of God even here, in the world of battlefields, slums, hospitals, and prisons.  If you don’t recognize God “down here,” it is unlikely you will recognize God “up there.” 

It could be that you are not one given to mystical moments.  The word of the Lord is rare for you.  You have no frequent visions.  Mountain-top transfigurations are experiences happen to other, presumably more spiritual people.  Even still, you can take heart and be glad.  Madeleine L’Engle and her family did not themselves participate in Timothy’s game with the swallow.  They only watched it from afar.  They enjoyed it indirectly.  But the mere sight of it caused them to remember that God intends a much higher life for us, and perhaps for all creation.  Nature red in tooth and claw is not the way God intended things to be.  That life should devour other life in order to survive is not the way of the kingdom.  Rather, God’s ultimate will is that the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, that the setter and swallow shall play together, and that the earth shall be filled with the glory of God.  What is more, in today’s reading from 2^nd Corinthians 3:12-4:2), St. Paul suggests that we are being transformed into the image of Christ.  So the Transfiguration is an encouragement for us to take heart, even if we’ve never had any experience remotely like it. 

The Transfiguration can also encourage us to listen.  If God speaks even here in the valley, then our calling is to listen.  This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him, said God’s voice in the cloud.  But how?  How do we listen for Jesus?  Perhaps by paying attention to the very longing deep in your soul – the longing for transcendence and transfiguration.  Listen to the strange uneasiness of your spirit.  Why do we yearn for a quality and quantity of life that only dimly shines through mortal existence?  Why are we drawn to YouTube videos of kittens snuggling up to fierce German Shepherds and receiving a welcome?  C.S. Lewis writes that the longing itself suggests we’ve been made for a different way of being.  Put another way, he said that we live in a good world that has gone wrong, but still retains the memory of what ought to have been.  Thus, the strange uneasiness we may feel when we glimpse people or creatures rising above the laws of the jungle is a holy thing.  It is an echo of the memory of what ought to have been.  It may be nothing short of God’s calling to us here in the valley of dry bones.  This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!  Listen to one deep calling to another in your own spirit (Psalm 42:9). 

One of the greatest theologians of the early church next to St. Paul himself was Augustine of Hippo.  In his majestic work, On the Trinity, Augustine set forth an interesting idea that he called Vestiges of the Trinity in the Created Order, or, “Vestigia Trinitatis.”  He believed that while the fall from grace mangled the image of God in us and in all of creation, nevertheless traces of God’s nature, vestiges of the Trinity remain and occasionally shine forth.  If indeed we are made in the image of God, then remnants of God’s perfect Being should still be discernable in human beings.  That we love at all is a reflection, or a remnant of the fellowship that that the Father, Son, and Spirit eternally enjoy in heaven.  That a setter and a swallow might play together is a vestige of the Trinity in the created order. 

Personally, I like Augustine’s idea of Vestigia Trinitatis.  It is a concept worth pondering as I listen for the voice of the Son of God.  It shines a ray of light on the strange uneasiness of the soul that seems to be a universal experience of humankind.  To say that the image of God has not been completely annihilated from our nature is to hold out respect for the dignity of every human being.  It holds out hope that we might be changed into the likeness of Christ.  St. John, reflecting on the great mystery of human nature and destiny, would write: See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are … Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  (1 John 3:1-2) 

On the mountain top, the disciples saw Jesus just as he is, transfigured before them.  They glimpsed what human nature was supposed to be, and by God’s grace might still become.  And while (Jesus) was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 

Setter and Swallow is found in L’Engle’s book, The Irrational Season, 1977.
Thoughts by C.S. Lewis are found in Mere Christianity. 

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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.

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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.” 

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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.