More Than Words

I'm not going to preach you a really good sermon today.

A really good sermon requires time for reflection. You need to read and meditate on the scriptures for that Sunday or holy day. You need to research anything you are going to assert, whether from the Bible or from the news or science. And then you want to be precise in not only what you say but how you say it. Just the writing of a really good sermon takes hours. It takes me an average of one hour of writing time for every minute of preaching time, so about 15 hours. That doesn't include the reflection and research or the rewrites which sometime go up to the last minute. Believe me, you do not want me to just wing it. So I take a lot of time crafting what I share with you each week. It is my unique contribution to our worship. Anyone can read out of a book.

But this is not one of those well-crafted sermons. I literally have had no time to think about anything but hurricane recovery this week. Oh, and car repair. I have been on my phone texting council members, vestry members, veterans, firefighters, the bishop, my colleagues, my wife and kids. Every morning since Irma passed, I have been participating in a conference call with the bishop and other Episcopal clergy, finding out how everyone is, how everyone's house fared, how everyone's church did and what help is being offered. Wednesday I had to leave that call early in order to catch the monthly conference call for interim Lutheran clergy. I have been talking with 2 insurance companies, one for my house and one for St. Francis. I have sat down twice with representatives of Citizens about the windstorm damage, once for Lord of the seas and once for my house. Only to find out that my home insurance was handed off to another company without my knowledge, nor apparently that of my mortgage holder! While I was talking with the Citizens rep, I got a call from some firefighters from Margate Coconut Creek with supplies that they wanted to drop off at the church—in 20 minutes! At that time we had nothing so I said “Yes.” Then, while stilll with the Citizens rep, I got a call from Citizens about the church. I thought I had time traveled somehow. It turns out Stacey, who was before me on her computer, had finished with the church and was now working on the claim for the parsonage. As soon as she sent the church claim by internet, the phone rep received it and called me. In addition I was fielding calls from Church Insurance about St. Francis, the people who are supposed to oversee its drying out, the subcontractor actually doing the drying out, and the representative of that company coming out to see the property.

At night I have been too exhausted to look at the lectionary. I have gone to whatever place we were sleeping that night. At first our house had no electricity and we need that for medical reasons. Now it has power but no AC. So thank you to Charlotte Roberts and Peggy Jent for putting us up and putting up with us. And thank you to the linemen who got power to Lord of the Seas because we slept in my air-conditioned office here one night on an inflatable bed.

And I don't expect sympathy. I know you have had it just as bad if not worse. Some stayed during the storm and then endured days of having no power or water or gas or 911 or anyone to help you dig your way out of the tangled trees and debris. Many lost their homes. Some, 14 at last count, lost their lives. I have been relatively fortunate and I humbly acknowledge that.

So I haven't really looked at the scriptures for today and I have nothing to say about them. But quite frankly, they have nothing to say about these last 2 weeks, at least not directly.

But Jesus did more than preach the gospel with his lips. He lived it. His actions spoke as loudly as his words about God's love and mercy and power. And I have seen that as well in the actions of people this week.

There are the Veterans of South Florida, headquartered under our church building at present, who called me and took addresses of elderly and disabled Keys residents needing help clearing their properties. There are the other vets, that is, veterinarians who came in with them to attend to injured pets and wildlife. There are the firefighters who came all the way from Margate with literally a ton of water, as well as diapers for all ages, cleaning supplies, pet food, people food and more, to which we added all the supplies that the vets brought. There is One World One Canvas who brought school supplies. There is the Rotary, represented by Sandy Higgs, who coordinated with the vets. There are the police from Palm Beach, Homestead and other jurisdictions who patrolled our streets after the disaster. There are Monroe County Sheriff's Deputies and other first responders who stayed during the storm. There are the folks who stayed in the Emergency Operations Center during the storm and afterward to coordinate the official efforts to keep people safe, get the streets cleared, get the disaster workers in and more. There are the members of the Disaster Mortuary Teams, going door to door and using dogs to recover the bodies of those who stayed and didn't make it. There are the military troops who came in to bring relief and order to the Keys just days after Irma. There is FEMA—don't scoff—trying to process all the requests for aid as fast as humanly possible. There are the medical personnel who got the Key West ER up and running, and opened up Mariners, and who set up a field hospital in Marathon when Fishermen's couldn't open in time. There are the elected officials doing everything they could to make the Keys as safe and habitable as possible before opening the Keys up to returning evacuees and who took a lot of flack for not doing that incredibly difficult task fast enough to suit those who have no idea what is involved. There are the church groups—the Baptist Men's group from North Carolina, the Salvation Army, the LDS, the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida and our sister churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Florida and the Bahamas—who sent people, supplies and money to help.

I am sure that I have probably missed some groups and people for which I am truly sorry.

As disciples, Jesus said we must take up our cross and follow him. Jesus didn't carry his cross for himself but for us. Our cross is not our personal problems but the burdens of others we take up for them. We could say, “I don't know you. I don't owe you anything.” Yet instead we say, “Let me help you with that. Take my hand. Let me help you up. Let me make things better.” Paul said, “Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

I have been through more hurricanes than I care to remember but I have never seen such a response as this. I am amazed at how fast and how well people came together and the outpouring of love in action I have seen. And I want to end with something an emergency worker said to me this week: “With all the problems in the world, why can't we always be like this?”

Dealing with Disaster

The scripture referred to is Exodus 14:19-31, and 15:1b-11,20-21.

The Bible, as Old Testament scholar John Walton tells us, was written for us but it wasn't written to us. It's rather like Paul's epistles. They were written to the churches in Corinth, Ephesus, and other cities and regions of the Roman Empire in the first century but what Paul says about the issues they are dealing with has been preserved for our edification. Just so, scripture in general was written to an ancient Near Eastern audience, who lived in various cultures different from ours. It uses images and concepts that were familiar to those people. That means sometimes we need background information to understand certain passages and features of scripture better.

For instance, in Biblical imagery the sea was often a symbol of chaos. Water is after all shapeless, taking on the form of whatever it comes into contact with. Unlike dry land, it changes, often and drastically, sometimes calm and sometimes churned up and dangerous, even to those on the land. Thus the second verse of Genesis 1 reads, “Now the earth was without shape and empty, and darkness was over the face of the watery deep, but the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water.” (NET translation) And the rest of the creation account can be seen as God containing and imposing order on the chaos that the waters represent, literally locking excess waters behind doors in the heavens and under the earth. The psalms sing of God setting boundaries to the waters. (Psalm 104:5-9) This idea of water as an symbol of chaos explains why, in the last part of Revelation, it says that the sea is no more. (Revelation 21:1) There is no chaos in the new heavens and new earth.

This gives an added dimension to our reading from Exodus. In it God parts the sea, the symbol of chaos, which enables the Israelites to escape the pursuing Egyptian army. And so important is this act of salvation for the Israelites that the oldest passage in the Bible, as determined by the very ancient form of the Hebrew used, is the last verse of our reading from Exodus 15, the song of Miriam: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and the rider he has thrown into the sea.” (By the way, that means the oldest verse in the Bible was written by a woman.)

The sea is chaos but ultimately, God is Lord even over the chaos.

That's something we have to remember a week after Irma, the fifth most powerful Atlantic hurricane in recorded history, the most intense since Katrina and the first major hurricane to hit Florida since Wilma. And you might well say, “But God didn't split the waters for us, did he? They went right over the land and our homes and businesses and left chaos in their wake.” Why did God allow this to happen?

This has led some TV evangelists and fundamentalists to see this as the judgment of God on our nation for issues mentioned either rarely or not at all in the Bible. Which is another problem of not understanding the time and culture of the people to whom the Bible was originally written. Again OT scholar John Walton points out that for them there was no concept of impersonal forces in the world. Everything that happened was attributed to conscious agents, either humans, angels, evil spirits or ultimately, God. There was no understanding of natural laws that operate without intelligence or intention. And we still do that. We curse at our car or computer or the weather when they do things that inconvenience us as if they meant to act that way. For that matter scientists speak of evolution as if it made choices or had intentions, rather than as the blind accumulation of accidents and happenstance, which if you pressed them, they would admit to supposedly believing.

We Christians can believe that God is behind the natural laws that govern the universe, without directly attributing to him every side effect of those laws. When God created light he made shadows possible, though that is not the primary purpose of the light. None of us has created a universe, much less a world and so thinking we can do so without byproducts like earthquakes and hurricanes is mere fantasy. And although we don't create earthquakes and hurricanes, science says we can exacerbate them through activities that throw nature out of balance like fracking and the generation of greenhouse gases which are altering our climate and increasing the intensity of storms.

Yet the fact is we live in a universe that is fine-tuned for the existence of life. If any of several dimensionless universal constants—gravity, the strong nuclear force which holds matter together, the ratio of dark energy to the critical energy density of the universe, the number of spatial dimensions in spacetime—were altered by just a little, life could not arise or be sustained. It's really hard not to conclude that we were meant to exist.

The Bible tells us we were meant to do more than exist; we are meant to reflect the image of the God who is love. And as we see in the life of Jesus, we are meant to do it even under the worst of circumstances. And we are not to get sidetracked by theological speculation. When Jesus was told about a disaster, he dismissed the idea that it was because the people who died were worse sinners than anyone else. (Luke 13:1-4) When his disciples pointed out a man born blind, Jesus refused to pin the blame on the man or his parents but saw it as an opportunity to display God's power and mercy by healing him. (John 9:1-7) Finger pointing in such cases ultimately yields nothing useful. A helping hand is what's needed.

When Mr. Rogers was a child, he was frightened by a newsreel showing a disaster. His mother told him to look for the helpers. There are always helpers, she said. As followers of Jesus we are called to be helpers, not judges. We are to focus not on fixing the blame but on fixing the problem.

But, and this is something I have been reminded of again and again by the bishop and by disaster experts, we must not refuse to let ourselves be helped as well, nor should we neglect to care for ourselves. On every plane ride they tell you that should the oxygen masks drop down and you are traveling with someone who will need help, put your mask on first. You won't be able to help them if you pass out because you neglected to take the time to get the air you need.

Paul said, “Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2) If we all help each other with the gifts God has granted each of us—the listeners listening, the strong cutting and hauling, the healers healing, the cooks cooking, the organizers making things efficient, the fixers fixing, the safety-minded protecting, the builders building, the comforters comforting—we can face this and we can make things better. This is God's work and with his grace and our hands, guided by his Spirit, we can reflect the love of Christ for all. To paraphrase Paul, in all of these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present or the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation—not even Irma—can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39, amended)

Live Worship on Facebook

While Julie and I are returning to the Keys, we will not be there today and neither LOS or SF would be ready to host a service. So today we will do worship on Facebook Live at 9:30 am. All you have to do is be on Facebook (on your computer, smartphone or other internet device) and friend or follow me (Christopher Todd) (if you aren't already). As there are other Christopher Todds in this world (many are much more famous than I) look for my distinctive profile picture, which is currently the words "Keep Calm and Trust God" in white on a red background.

At 9:30 I will show up on your newfeed. I will include everyone on my friend list as the audience. 

Because I have the Book of Common Prayer with me we will be using that. If you don't have one you can follow along at www.bcponline.org. We will do Morning Prayer II beginning on page 78.

It looks easy. That always makes me suspicious so pray that it works right.

See you in church on Facebook.

Chris +

Haters Gonna...?

The scripture referred to is Jeremiah 15:15-21, Romans 19:9-21, and Matthew 16:21-28.

“What could I do?” said the inmate. We were speaking through the open meal flap in his cell door. He was in Alpha, our unit where they put people for being a danger to themselves or other inmates. His rhetorical question came at the end of a recitation of all the times he had hit other people, usually, according to him, in retaliation for their hitting or attacking him. His question implied he couldn't have done otherwise. When someone strikes or assaults us, we react and try to pay them back in kind. It's natural. It feels good. It doesn't mean it is good, however.

If you ask me, a lot of our problems in behaving ourselves has to do with the fact that things that feel good emotionally or physically are not always good for us morally or psychologically or even physically. So far I've lost 13 pounds on my “if it tastes good, spit it out” diet. Actually I've just cut out soda and snacks, restricting myself to only eating meals and healthier ones at that. But the hardest part is denying myself those delicious empty calories that food scientists have worked so hard to make addictive. Anything that feels good is addictive, at least for certain people. Science shows us in brain scans that people really can get addicted to not only alcohol and drugs but food, gambling, sex, extreme sports, and yes, even anger. Anger can trigger dopamine reward receptors in the brain and the discharge of adrenalin which gives us energy in “fight or flight” situations. And that can feel good, even when experienced vicariously, such as watching a bad guy get his just desserts at the hand of the hero in an action movie.

Why do people join hate groups like the alt-right, neo-nazis, or ISIS? Why do some people complain constantly? Part of the reason is anger is addictive. Which fits my favorite non-technical definition of addiction: the indulgence in any substance or activity that one persists in despite mounting negative consequences. There is actually a 12 step program called Rageaholics Anonymous.

Anger can be constructive, especially when used to redress injustices in society or to improve conditions in an industry. In 1911, the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory killed 146 workers, 123 of whom were women. When it was discovered that the owners had locked all the exits and stairwells to prevent them from taking breaks, leading 62 of the workers to leap to their deaths from the 8^th, 9^th and 10^th floors, societal outrage led to changes in safety standards and better working conditions.

The trick, as Aristotle pointed out, is being angry with the right person or persons to the right extent at the right time in the right way. Too often anger tips over into rage and the result is not making things better but doing a lot of unnecessary damage to things, people and relationships. But even truly righteous anger, anger over real evil, can present the same problems, especially when those who cause the evil are in power.

In our passage from Jeremiah, the prophet asks God to bring down retribution for him on his persecutors. The Hebrew verb literally means “avenge or punish.” Jeremiah warned the nation that Judah was going to fall to the Babylonian Empire and this was not a popular message. He was rejected by family, neighbors and friends as well as by false prophets and kings. One of the most dramatic acts of rejection is when an officer of the royal court read Jeremiah's latest prophesy to King Jehoiakim. As the officer finished each section, the king cut it off the scroll and threw it into the fire. During his 40 year ministry, which covers the last 5 kings of Judah, Jeremiah would be imprisoned, thrown into a cistern and taken to Egypt against his will. So his anger at all this opposition is justified.

Rejection literally hurts; neuroscientists say the brain releases his own natural painkiller, mu opioid, whenever we suffer pain, whether it's physical or emotional. So Jeremiah is not being hyperbolic when he asks, “Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?” All this rejection is getting to him.

Still Jeremiah's anger pushes him a bit too far. As his position as truth-teller becomes more and more painful, he reacts by lashing out at God. As someone once said, hurt people hurt people. Generally speaking, those who hurt or harm others perceive themselves to have been hurt or harmed. But, as we see in hate movements, when they lash out, they don't confine their words and acts to those who actually caused them pain or damage. Indeed, because their hate is generalized to an entire race or religion or class of people, they are of necessity less particular as to whom they negatively affect. For instance, some on the alt-right verbally attacked the appearance and character of Heather Heyer, the woman run over by a white nationalist in Charlottesville. Why? As near as I can tell they couldn't turn on one of their own, however outrageous his actions, so they had to denigrate the person he killed and make it look like she deserved it. They resorted to the tried and true method of blaming the victim. Ironically, by doing so, they turned her into a martyr and more fully exposed the depth of their own evil.

Jeremiah can't hurt God's feelings by characterizing him as a deceitful brook, a mirage in the desert that promises refreshment but doesn't give it. But if he thinks of God that way, as untrustworthy, his relationship with the Lord will deteriorate. Paradoxically, Jeremiah is blaming the messenger, an injustice he himself knows only too well. God is giving him the message which others find unpalatable. But ultimately God is doing so to save his people. He is like a doctor who is not sugarcoating how bad the patient's condition is, so that they take it seriously. He wants the people to change the disastrous course they have taken. Like all the prophets, Jeremiah's message is for people to repent, to turn away from their self-destructive ways and turn back to God. But first Jeremiah must be the one who turns back to God. He needs to start trusting God again. And God says he will defend Jeremiah from his enemies. “If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall serve as my mouth. It is they who will turn to you, not you who will turn to them. And I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, says the Lord.”

And that assurance of God's presence and protection is enough for Jeremiah. He continues to get God's message out.

The imprecatory psalms are like Jeremiah's pleas that God punish those who harm us. Some are chilling. All I can say is that it is better to take such feelings to God rather than act on them. Paul picks up on that in our passage from Romans. “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them....Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all....Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written. 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, say the Lord.'”

Outrage is all the rage today. People get so excited by things posted on the internet that I rarely read the comment section of any website. And 99 times out of 100 the folks who are angry don't know the people they are mad at and usually don't know all the facts. But their reaction can be so extreme that folks have been fired for what they have tweeted or posted. Sometimes they deserve it; sometimes they just said something stupid, a joke that wasn't well thought out, or a gut reaction that they should have filtered through their prefrontal cortex before it got to their mouth or their thumbs. The trolls on the internet make no distinction between evil and idiocy, nor do they understand mercy or forgiveness.

Now some people actually say and do awful things that merit a response. Isn't it too bad that there isn't someone who knows all the facts and even knows the hearts of those involved, someone who can make a truly just judgment of the incident and handle it appropriately? There is, says Paul; it's God. More importantly, it's not you!

When someone does or says bad things to us, we are not to lash out in anger or pain; we need to trust God to take care of it. This is hard. This is one of the hardest things Jesus asks of us: to love our enemy, to act and speak lovingly to them. To turn the other cheek. But it is an expression of our faith, of our trusting God to do the right thing.

Then Paul paraphrases Proverbs 25:21-22: “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” The last part is a bit hard to understand. What does “heap burning coals on their heads” mean? It could mean God will in good time rain down his punishment on them (Psalm 140:10), especially if you are acting nobly. Or it could mean that when you respond to their hostility with kindness, they will burn with shame. You acted honorably; they did not. It is interesting that in the book of Daniel the resurrection and final judgment are described thus: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, and some to shame and eternal contempt.” (Daniel 12:2) In the honor/shame culture of the Bible, as well as of Asia, Latin America, the American South, etc., what could be worse than experiencing burning shame and dishonor forever? That would be hell to them.

We are to leave the passing of judgment on others and the determination of repayment for evil to God. It's not our job. We are not the comic book character the Punisher, taking upon ourselves the role of judge, jury and executioner. We are to act the way doctors or nurses do, giving care to any and everyone, regardless of their moral state. And who knows? By responding to their hate with love, we might just change people's minds and lives.

Peter couldn't see that in today's gospel. He couldn't see how Jesus getting himself killed was going to make anything better. Like most people, Peter saw the world in terms of winners and losers. Winners didn't get captured by the enemy and they certainly didn't die. And yet we recognize self-sacrifice as the greatest form of heroism. 24 year old Welles Crowther was an equities trader working on the 104^th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center. On September 11. 2001, after a United Airlines plane stuck the south tower, Crowther called his mother to tell her he was OK and then started leading people down the stairs, carrying one wounded woman on his shoulders. Then he went back up again and again and again, putting out fires, giving first aid and leading people down to safety. To protect himself from the smoke, he wore over his nose and mouth a red bandana, which he had received as a child from his father, a volunteer fireman. Crowther himself became a junior firefighter at age 16. So it was appropriate that when they found his body on March 19, 2002, he was with other several other firefighters and emergency workers in the command post of the south tower lobby.

Marvel Comics, perhaps inadvisedly, put out a special comic book, depicting their New York based superheroes cleaning up after 9/11. But in reality a true hero was in the south tower that day, saving lives, dressed not in armor, or a winged helmet, or in spandex, but in a red bandana.

And what Welles Crowther did for the people trapped in that tower, Jesus did for the whole world. Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this—that one lays down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Paul adds, “But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

That's why the symbol of Christianity is a cross. It says that God loves us enough to die for us. He wants to save us from the flaming wreck we have made of our world and our lives. He is willing to walk through hell and high water to rescue us, no matter what it costs him. And so Jesus tells us, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.” How essential is this to being a Christian? Jesus also said, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:27)

At the jail one of the most popular requests I get is for rosaries, which inmates like to wear as a cross necklace. Roman Catholics tell me that's not how you are supposed to use them. I tell inmates they are not magic talismans. Sometimes I wish I could tell folks on the outside that crosses are not merely jewelry or adornments, either. The cross is a sign of the worst thing we could do to God and the most wonderful thing he has done for us. Jesus bore the cross out of love for us; our cross is not our personal problems but the problems of others that we are willing to bear out of love for them.

So it is misleading if we wear crosses but are not willing to act in self-sacrificial love for others. It is misleading if we put a cross on a building but don't reach out to help the needy. It is a flat-out contradiction to burn a cross, unless your intent is to show the world just how wrong you are by destroying the symbol of God's love for all.

It is natural to want to hurt those who hurt us. It feels good. But we are more than mere animals. We don't always follow our instincts. We overcome them to reach out to others, to work with them, to build a world that would not exist if we stayed in our tribes, loving only our own and hating all others. But as we see from all the racism and xenophobia, fear and hatred are still our default settings.

Jesus came to change that, to change us. He showed us how to love, completely and fully, even those who hate and hurt us. And his love and grace and forgiveness changes haters. Like Saul of Tarsus, one of the church's fiercest opponents who became one of its greatest proponents. Like former KKK leader Johnny Lee Clary. Like serial killers Jeffrey Dahmer and David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam.” Like neo-Nazi and convicted murderer turned pastor Johannes Kneifel. Like former jihadi terrorist Bashir Mohammad. Like former Holocaust denier and member of the American Atheists Larry Darby. All of them turned from hate to followers of God's love Incarnate, Jesus Christ. Because the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. If you hate something you are still passionately concerned with it and that ardent loathing can be turned to love. Haters gonna hate. But if given the chance, if they let Jesus into their lives, haters gonna heal.