SWEEPS: Service

Hearing someone yelling “Help!” would mobilize most of us. It is especially galvanizing when you are a nurse. And it's distressing to hear when you are in the midst of treating another patient. I wrapped things up as quickly as I could and left the patient's room, only to find the source of the cries not 10 steps from the doorway. As soon as she saw me the old woman in the wheelchair ceased bleating and, in her most imperious manner, ordered me to get her a snack. I don't know if this woman was once rich or not but she treated the staff at the nursing home as if we were hired help. Furious both that she was not actually in physical distress and at the tone she used, I went up to her and said, “We are not your servants! We are medical personnel who are here to keep you healthy! I have more than 2 dozen patients, many of them a lot sicker than you! If you want a snack, you don't bellow; you ask politely like a civilized person. And when we have the time, we will get your snack. Do you understand?” Quite abashed, she muttered an apology. And then, since I had finished with the other patient, I went and got her a snack.

Today we regard being called a servant as an insult. How much more so if we realized that often when the word is used in the Bible a more literal translation would be “slave.” Frequently in scripture the difference between “slave” and “servant” is not clear. Some forms of the slavery practiced then were not like the rigid, permanent condition of slavery that we had in pre-Civil War America. In ancient Israel, people might even sell themselves into slavery to pay off a debt or to keep themselves from starving. The Bible says that a slave had to be fed and clothed and released after working for 6 years, with generous provisions. (Leviticus 25: 35-37; Deuteronomy 15:12-15) Such slaves were usually better off than poor freemen. A slave might be promoted to become the steward of a master's estate, as Joseph was. In the Roman empire, slaves could practice a craft, such as blacksmithing, or work as an artisan, or have a profession, like teaching or medicine. In addition, a debt slave could be ransomed from slavery by a relative who paid the debt. This relative was called a redeemer. (Leviticus 25:47-49)

The fact is that for most of history the majority of human beings have been servants to someone. If not actual slaves, they were tenant farmers, herders, soldiers or household servants. Most societies were hierarchical and technically, everyone was the servant of the local lord. He was in turn the servant of the king, who might be the servant of an emperor, who was supposed to be the servant of God. Being somebody's servant was just a fact of life.

The world hasn't changed all that much. Most of us work for someone who has the ability to fire us. Few of us have unique skills that are in such demand that others will offer us a job the minute we are free from our current employment. In today's economy, people who thought they could pick and choose among positions at other companies have received a nasty reality check. In fact, the idea that having a government job provides a safe and secure career is no longer true. Right now, if you have a job, plus a mortgage, utility bills, car payments, and the need to gas up that car, you are as good as an indentured servant. As the Bob Dylan song goes, you gotta serve someone.

So why would we want to voluntarily act as servants to others? That is the topic of our last SWEEPS sermon: service. And, as you can imagine, it is one of the least practiced parts of Christianity. We might go on service projects and short missions. There's nothing wrong with that. But as Christians we are to act as servants of Christ daily. (Mark 9:35) We are to imitate Jesus, who, at the Last Supper, stripped down and wore a towel to wash the dirty feet of his disciples the way a slave would. Then he said, “I have set you an example that you should so as I have done to you.” (John 13:15) This is one answer to the question “What would Jesus do?” (Matthew 20:26-28)

The most popular thing about Jesus is his ethics. I should amend that to some of his ethics. While his sayings about love and forgiveness are well-liked, by and large, non-Christians and even some Christians ignore Jesus' ethical teachings on sex and marriage. Very few will commit to loving their enemies. Denying yourself and taking up your cross isn't a big hit with a lot of folks either. Being a servant gets a lot of lip-service and that's all.

Jesus' leadership style, called servant leadership, is quite popular, at least in management books and seminars. But what about plain old servanthood? In an era when being assertive is good and being a doormat is bad, you don't hear much praise for acting as a servant.

Part of this is a misunderstanding of the role of a servant. We are not committing ourselves to satisfying every whim of others. That is what the older woman thought I and the staff were there for. That is the sense of the word that I objected to. But we nurses are servants in the sense of doing what is necessary and helpful to others. We medicate, feed, wash, dress, treat, exercise, and otherwise care for those who cannot do so on their own. That is a form of service. And it is probably the best analogy of what Christian service is like.

We usually think of a servant as someone to be ordered around. But not all servants are like that. As I said, in the ancient world a servant could be a teacher. A teacher has at least some limited form of authority over their students. They are serving by imparting their knowledge but to do so, they need to be able to assign work and grade the results. In this case, in order to serve others, it is the servant who calls the shots.

A physician is a servant in this sense. Doctors ask questions, subject the patients to tests, and prescribe medicine and courses of treatment. But if you do not follow the doctor's orders, he or she will be of very little service to you.

As a nurse, I wasn't able to give orders in that sense. But I followed the doctor's orders and acted as his agent, asking questions, performing some tests, taking samples for other tests, giving prescribed medicines, treating wounds and other conditions. Other healthcare personnel also carry out doctor's orders, taking X-rays or using other imaging methods, giving physical, occupational, or speech therapy, dispensing drugs, even laying out a dietary plan of what the patient can and cannot eat.

Obviously there are tensions here. Patients can and do sometimes refuse to follow doctor's orders. They would rather lie in bed than undergo tiring and perhaps painful therapy that would enable them to walk again. They may object to a medication, sometimes over legitimate concerns, but sometimes for reasons that have more to do with comfort than health. For instance, patients may object to taking a diuretic because it means going to the bathroom frequently. But taking the diuretic can be the best way to get rid of fluids that are causing legs and ankles to swell up or that are threatening to drown the person's lungs in their own fluids.

When a person has a legitimate problem, we nurses will discuss it with the patient and ask the doctor if something in the treatment plan can be changed. Perhaps pain meds can be given an hour or half-hour before the patient goes to physical therapy. Perhaps the diuretic can be given earlier in the day so the patient can sleep through the night without having to get up every few hours to go to the bathroom.

Sometimes patients can be unreasonable. Maybe they heard bad things about a drug or have a completely mistaken idea about what it does. Doctors and nurses get this a lot, partly because of real doubts raised about other drugs in the past, partly because of the ubiquitous ads for medicine, partly because of the internet which spreads both good information and misinformation. We try to correct these things but the result can still be that the patient may refuse life-saving drugs or clamor for inappropriate ones. She may refuse to go to physical therapy which means she may become an invalid despite her newly replaced knee or hip. He may continue to eat the wrong foods or refuse to eat the right ones, causing his blood sugar or his blood pressure to rise or drop dangerously. She may take her breathing treatments and then go outside to smoke.

Legally this is tricky territory for a nurse. Patients have rights. They can behave badly, like refusing to shower, and then we can be cited for neglect. They can refuse to believe that they cannot get out of bed without help and then we can be investigated when they fall. All we can do is try to persuade them to do what's right.

That resonates with me as a Christian. There are a lot of spiritually unhealthy people out there and not all of them want help. Or they only want help on their own terms, which may not be compatible with getting better. On our part, all we have is the truth of the power of the love of God in Christ, the power of persuasion and the power of prayer. That's the challenge of serving others.

In most professions, you can serve God by serving those created in his image. You can look for Jesus in the people he died for and serve him by caring for even the least of his brothers and sisters. (Matthew 25:37-40) But you can't force them to let you serve them. And you have to resist being persuaded to enable them to harm themselves. That's a big temptation for those who serve. We can confuse serving others with pleasing others.

There is a peculiar effect of serving others. It can lead to loving others. Usually we think that first you must love people in order to devote yourself to serving them. But I've found that it works the other way around as well. In serving people, you learn about them. In learning about them, you can discover things to love about them. You discover their strengths and weaknesses. You discover their quirks. You discover their vulnerabilities. If you really get to know them, you learn their fears and their hopes. You see their humanity and ideally, they see yours. You touch their lives and they touch yours.

Serving is always about helping and not harming. But sometimes it can include hurting people inadvertently. There is nothing so heartrending as a patient crying out in pain as you are cleaning and dressing their wounds. But it must be done. Untreated wounds get toxic. In seeking not to hurt a patient at all, you can do them greater harm. Sometimes you have to help a person face and deal with their trauma, whether physical, psychological or spiritual, so that they can heal.

So serving others takes wisdom. You need to know why you are doing what you are doing. You need to know the principles so well that you can envision alternatives that preserve the essentials. And you need to keep communicating with the Great Physician. He is the ultimate authority on spiritual health and healing.

And finally, you need to take breaks. You wouldn't run a machine nonstop 24/7. It would break down. You need to rest or else the quality of the service you offer will suffer. You need to pray, to praise and to relax. God not only knows this, he made it one of the Ten Commandments. Servants rest on the Sabbath, too. (Exodus 20:8-10)

All of the topics of our SWEEPS sermons are forms of service—stewardship, worship, evangelism, education, and pastoral care. They are all ways of meeting people's needs. They are all ways of serving Christ. They are all ways of glorifying God.

But they are not all of the possible ways of serving God through serving others. And discovering new ways to serve is yet another form of service. So I leave you with this challenge: How are you serving Jesus in what you do? And how could you do it better?

Originally preached on March 21, 2010. It has been revised and updated. 

SWEEPS: Pastoral Care

The patriarchs in Genesis, Moses before his call by God and David before he became a warrior were shepherds. Herding sheep is truly one of the world's oldest professions, going back 6000 years. Sheep are the most frequently mentioned animals in the Bible and there are about 100 references to shepherds. Many of them are not literal. Shepherding is all about leading, protecting, providing for and caring for a group. Naturally it became a favorite metaphor for the king of Israel and even more so for God's relationship to his people. Jesus called himself the “good shepherd,” indicating that, unlike the hired help, he was willing to give his life to save the flock. (John 10:11-12) The word “pastor” comes to English via the Latin for “shepherd.” So we who are in the ordained ministry and who have accepted responsibility for leading a parish are called pastors, shepherds of souls.

The metaphor says a lot. A shepherd must lead his flock to good pastures so they can feed. (Psalm 23:2) A pastor leads a church in such a way that his parish finds spiritual sustenance.

A shepherd has to protect his flock from predators. (Psalm 23:4) The analogy is muddier here because of the identity of the spiritual predators of the parish. Wolves may eat sheep, but I don't think we should classify as a predator another legitimate church that may be attracting parishioners to change churches. After all, every church should be part of Jesus's flock.

But certainly a pastor should protect his people from things that seek to separate folks from Christ. This includes, of course, those cults that use unethical influence and coercive control to exploit their followers for the personal benefit of the narcissistic leader. And there are those philosophies and religions whose primary feature seems to be making people feel good about themselves without actually demanding moral reform. These are belief systems that make people feel spiritual but which never bring up ideas like personal sin or personal restraint from doing whatever one desires. The only morality they espouse is some vaguely defined idea of karma.

But there are a multitude of less obvious things that are pulling people away from Christ's body. For instance, time-wise, this can include leisure activities and even work. People are working harder and longer and often working more than one job. When they are not working, people are staring at their screens to get enough dopamine hits that they will feel better. Excessive work and leisure are eating up time that should be devoted to sleep, not to mention time spent with God. It's a sad state of affairs when people must choose between satisfying their physical needs and their spiritual needs.

Shepherds also care for their sheep. In Biblical times, at night the shepherd would lead them into the fold, a kind of corral. The shepherd would put his rod across the entrance so he could stop and examine each sheep for cuts and scratches and then apply first aid. The ministerial equivalent is pastoral care, which is the topic of this SWEEPS sermon.

Pastoral care encompasses a whole range of activities, from counseling to visiting the sick to preparing people for marriage to conducting baptisms and funerals to listening to confessions. In large congregations with a full-time clergyperson, pastoral care can take up a lot of his or her schedule. If the budget allows it, an assistant pastor will be hired to deal with many of these duties. That way the senior pastor can devote himself to the extra tasks expected by modern churches: chairing numerous meetings, managing a staff, marketing the church, raising funds, overseeing building plans, creating new ministries, maybe running a parochial school and otherwise acting like the CEO of a company. Being able to do all these things is a gift, specifically the gift of administration or governing, as Paul called it. (1 Corinthians 12:28) Only a few churches recognize that administration is not exactly the same as being a pastor. Ministerial programs in seminaries train students in Bible, theology, and pastoral care but not really in administration. As I found out, you learn that when you get a church.

Why am I, a pastor, preaching to you, the flock, about pastoral care? For 2 reasons. First, because it is also a gift and it isn't confined to ordained ministers. In recognition of this fact, Dr. Kenneth Haugk, a Lutheran pastor and clinical psychologist, developed the Stephen Ministries. When he found the need for pastoral care in his large St. Louis church was too much for him to meet alone, he trained 9 lay people to help. Today thousands of congregations, not just big ones, have Stephen ministers. Folks who have not been called to ordained ministry can exercise their gift of helping others.

But, secondly, I am teaching you about pastoral care for the same reason the Red Cross teaches first aid to people who are not healthcare professionals—because you might be there when it's needed and a professional might not be. All Christians should know the basics of helping another person in the throes of a spiritual crisis.

Crises are usually about loss: loss of either a person in your life, or a relationship, or a job, or status, or self-image, or health, or a loss of purpose or meaning or faith or hope. The loss might be actual or potential. It might have already happened or else there might be a threat of it happening. The person facing the loss could react just as you'd expect someone in that situation to do. Or they might seem to be overreacting or under-reacting, in your eyes at least. What do you do?

A comedian once said that 90% of life is just showing up. The most important thing to do when someone is suffering is just to be there. Though some people might wish to face such things alone, the overwhelming majority of folks do not. They want support. They want someone by their side.

The question that tends to come up when trying to help in such cases is “What do I say?” The answer is “As little as possible.” Tell the person in crisis how sorry you are that this happened or is happening to them. Give them a hug if appropriate. But mostly, listen. Pay attention to the ratio of ears to mouth that God gave us and listen twice as much as you talk.

If the person suffering needs to talk, let them. Tragedies tend to overturn our images of ourselves as the heroes of our life stories. These things happen to other people, we think. We are too smart or too strong or careful or healthy or prepared or Christian to have this befall us. Talking is a way to make sense of what has happened, to make it fit into the narrative of our lives. The Red Cross has found that a disaster victim needs to tell their story an average of 17 times before they can accept that it is now part of their story. Let them talk.

At times you might need to ask a question for practical reasons or to clarify exactly what happened. But do not grill the person. Gently prompt them to answer. Do not try to unearth details just to satisfy your curiosity. Be prepared to tolerate a good deal of repetition and a fair amount of rambling. Take note of what seems to have had the biggest emotional impact on the person and what aspects they seem to have the hardest time wrestling with. Please realize that a lot of the questions they ask might be rhetorical. When they ask things like “What will I do?” or “What will I say?” they are probably not really asking for advice but for support. They aren't really asking for a list of practical steps at that point but expressing how overwhelmed they are. Let them know that you're here and will help them.

The same is probably true if they ask questions about God. They don't really want a coldly logical or even a scriptural reason why the bad thing happened to them or a loved one. Never—I repeat—never tell them the tragedy is God's plan or God's will. Never presume to know why God let this happen. You don't know. Be honest and tell them that: “I don't know.” Resist the temptation to defend God. Remember that Job asked God a lot of hard questions in his suffering, while his so-called “comforters” kept giving reasons why God let the loss of his children, wealth and health happen. But in the end, God commends Job and condemns his “comforters” for trying to defend God with faulty reasoning. (Job 42:7-8) God prefers honesty over well-meaning lies on his behalf.

Do not deny or dismiss the person's experience. Do not tell them what they are or are not feeling. At that moment all they have to cling to may be what they are experiencing. Don't tell them they are nuts or wrong to feel what they are feeling. It's human to feel all kinds of ways when things fall apart. Tell them, “I can understand why you feel that way.” If you have truly felt that way and have undergone the same or an extremely similar experience, then you can say, “I felt the same way when so-and-so died or such-and-such happened.” But if you haven't, don't lie. Just listen and empathize and assure them that they are not crazy or evil to feel as they do. After all, the Bible includes expressions of all human feelings including the darkest ones. If you don't believe me, check out Psalm 88.

Do not try to impose a meaning on what happened or is happening to the person. For it to make any sense to them, for it to have any comfort, they must discover the meaning themselves. Of course, you don't want them to conclude that they are worthless or hopeless. Let them know that it is normal to question or doubt themselves. We all play the “coulda, woulda, shoulda” game when something goes wrong. Now is not the time to draw conclusions on whose fault something is or what it says about anyone.

When you say, “If there's anything I can do, just ask,” realize what you are committing yourself to. Don't make promises you can't keep. If you realize that you are in over your head, the best thing to do is to refer the person to a professional. If it is mostly a crisis of faith, refer them to a pastor, preferably their own. If it requires medical or psychological attention, assist them in getting help. And take seriously any talk of suicide or violence. The idea that those who talk about such things never do them is just plain wrong.

Tell the person you will pray for them and all involved and mean it. Ask if they'd like you to pray for them now. Ask what specifically they would like you to pray for. Then just be honest as you pray. Acknowledge the problem. Acknowledge the feelings. Ask for healing, strength, comfort and whatever is needed. Remind yourselves that Jesus knows what it is like to be human and helpless and hurting. Make the prayer plain, simple and to the point.

If, and only if, the person wants to know where God is in all their suffering, what you can tell them is that God knows what suffering is firsthand. Jesus, God incarnate, suffered. Jesus knew what it was like to have your family think you are nuts, to have a loved one (Joseph, Lazarus) die, to be betrayed by a friend, to be abandoned by your friends, to be unjustly accused, to have your words twisted, to be hurt, to be tormented, to be helpless. Jesus wept. God knows what it is like to suffer. We are not alone in that.

And remind them that God heals. It may not seem like that at the time, but even if it doesn't help them right now, tell them to tuck that fact in the back of their mind. God heals. But just as a child doesn't always understand exactly why a doctor does certain things to them, like giving them painful shots, we may not always be able to see why God is working as he does. As hard as it may be at times, we need to trust in his love for us. And we need to realize that nothing can separate us from that love.

There are great books on helping others in this way. There's Christian Counseling by Dr. Gary Collins and Christian Caregiving: a Way of Life by Kenneth Haugk. I recommend that everyone learn more about this, just like I think everyone should know basic first aid. You never know when you are going to need it but someday you probably will.

All metaphors break down. In real life, sheep never become shepherds. They cannot give each other first aid. But we are not sheep. We are meant to grow into the image of our shepherd, Jesus. To switch metaphors, we are members of the body of Christ. Whenever a part of your body is injured, other elements of your body, like your immune system, are dispatched to limit the damage and begin the healing. Though our strengths and gifts may differ, they are all given so that we may minister to and build up each other in the body of Christ. And in many cases, we are simply called upon to listen and say little. But often that's the best way to let people know how much you love them.

Originally preached on March 10, 2010. It has been revised and updated. 

SWEEPS: Evangelism and Education

When I first preached this sermon 15 years ago, the opening paragraph was about how I found a great deal on business cards when cleaning out my spam filter. It was 250 cards for $1.99. You went to the website, picked a template, filled in the blanks, got a preview of how it looked, fixed anything you didn't like, approved it and went through the check out. Of course, they tried to upsell me by presenting pictures of coffee mugs, T-shirts, etc. with info from my business cards on them. And, of course, the shipping cost was a lot more than the $1.99 for the cards, although they did include another 250 cards. But in a couple of days I had cards with a picture of my Episcopal church on it, our name, address, phone number and service times, with my name as priest. Doing such things online was relatively new and so I told my congregation that if they were interested, they could go to the website and check it out. And they could use the cards I distributed to invite people to church.

It might have sounded like a commercial but as a former copywriter, I can tell you it really wasn't. It was something more effective than the ads we get bombarded with all the time: it was a personal testimonial. I was sincere in my praise for the product. I didn't get paid to say it. I didn't hype it, either; I just told it like it was. Also I didn't try to close the deal; I simply told the people I was talking to where to go if they were interested.

Why did I do it? To show the people listening to the sermon how to evangelize others. We're in the middle of our SWEEPS sermon series and we are talking about evangelism and education. These are 2 important and related activities for the church as a whole. However, it is vital that Christians as individuals should also be involved in them.

Unfortunately, when it comes to evangelism, we in America have modeled it on marketing and on high-pressure sales techniques. And so those of us who really don't have the knack for marketing or have a taste for arm-twisting can feel that we can't pass on the gospel. Nonsense. If you can recommend a good doctor or mechanic to a friend, you can recommend Jesus to them. If you can recommend a good restaurant to an acquaintance, then you can recommend your church to them. If that person isn't interested, fine. But if they are, you've passed on a helpful bit of information.

You do need to have thought out 2 things first: the basic facts of the gospel and how it made a difference in your life.

You would think that most Christians would know the basics of the faith. After all, we not only preach on them and recite the creed every Sunday in church, we also make learning about them the heart of the confirmation process. Sadly, a lot of kids treat confirmation as a course you have to pass in order to graduate from church. We don't retain that information any better than we do high school algebra.

You tend to remember things better if they relate to your life. But many Christians believe, along with non-Christians, that the gospel is mostly about taking out fire insurance for the afterlife. They miss the huge emphasis that Jesus puts on life now in the world. Part of this comes from misinterpreting the term “kingdom of heaven” found in Matthew. Matthew's gospel seems to have been targeted at an audience of Jewish believers. And they, like Orthodox Jews today, tried to rule out the very possibility of taking God's name in vain by avoiding using the word “God” at all. So Matthew substituted “kingdom of heaven” for “kingdom of God” which is used in all the other canonical gospels and so is probably the term that Jesus used. (Mark 4:11; Luke 4:43; John 3:3)

The kingdom of God is sometimes talked of in the future tense but Jesus does talk about the kingdom of God existing in the present tense as well. (Mark 1:15; Luke 11:20) The kingdom is not a country with borders; it is wherever God reigns as king. For instance, when Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a field in which weeds grow up alongside good grain, he isn't saying that there will be evil in heaven. He is describing the kingdom of God in the world, present tense. (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43)

Think of it like D-Day. The landing of the Allies in France was the beginning of the end of Hitler's Third Reich. As the Allies took over Nazi-occupied countries, they brought freedom. But Europe wasn't completely free until they took Germany back from the Nazis. The kingdom of God will only be fully realized in the future but it began with God's invasion of this world in the person of Jesus and exists now wherever he has freed people from sin. Jesus said “the kingdom of God is within you,” or “in the midst of you” since the “you” is plural in Greek. (Luke 17:21) So most of what Jesus tells us relates to this life.

This life is a mixed bag. Parts of it are wonderful and other parts are terrible. Why? Most of the things that negatively impact our lives have come about due to the bad choices we and others have made. And while we have little or no control over the bad choices others make, like our parents, ancestors or leaders, why don't we make better choices ourselves? Is there anyone out there who thinks using addictive drugs is a rational choice? Does adultery seem like a consequence-free choice to anyone who wants a happy marriage and trauma-free kids? In view of the financial fiasco that has put 67% of the wealth of this country into the hands of the richest 10% of households and only 2.6% in the hands of the bottom 50% of the population, can anyone, besides millionaires and billionaires, now echo Gordon Gecko's mantra that “Greed is good”? Why do we continue to repeat the bad choices that others make rather than reject them?

To be sure, we don't make our choices in a vacuum. There are all kinds of influences on us—genetic, familial, cultural. But if they could always veto our making different choices then no one could ever change their life for good or for evil. No one coming from a good situation in life could ever betray friends or cheat to win. No one in a bad situation could ever overcome addiction or succeed despite handicaps. Yet one of the most notorious bank robbers to hit L.A. was the son of a minister and had a good childhood. Jamie Lee Curtis came from a family that was blighted by addiction. Her father Tony Curtis abused alcohol, cocaine and heroin. Her brother died of an overdose at age 21. She was herself addicted to prescription painkillers for a decade. She decided to get treatment and has been sober for 25 years. Our choices, even the hard ones, are real choices. Our past need not determine our future.

Jesus spoke of the source of our bad choices: “...from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, shamelessness, envy, slander, arrogance and foolishness. All these come from within and pollute a person.” (Mark 7:21-22) If you've ever really been tempted, you know that our desires to do things we know are wrong can overrule our good sense when making certain choices. The Bible calls these desires and the actions they lead to “sins.”

They not only mess up our lives and the lives of those around us but they mess up our relationship with God. God would be justified in turning his back on all of us for all the harm we have done to ourselves and to each other, not to mention to the rest of his creation. But he loves us and wants to restore us to what we were created to be: his sons and daughters made in his image.

So in Jesus God entered into his creation to live as one of us, to announce his intentions to save us and to take upon himself the negative consequences that our sins have upon our relationship with God. And he did it at the cost of his own life. Then God raised Jesus to vindicate what Christ said about himself and about God. His resurrection also shows us how God will ultimately reboot and restore creation to what it was meant to be.

If we choose to turn from our sin-dominated lives and turn to God, he will offer us a direct connection to him through his Spirit, the same Holy Spirit who empowered Jesus. By letting God implant his Spirit in us, he can start healing us. And by joining other people in recovery from sin, we can begin a life that is about restoration rather than destruction, forgiveness rather than retribution, reconciliation rather than polarization, helping rather than harming.

That's just one way to relate the basics of the gospel to people's everyday lives. It's about how Jesus frees those who turn to him from the things they do to sabotage themselves, their relationships with others and their relationship with God. The worst way to present the good news to others is to say, “You're evil. You're going to hell if you don't have Jesus.” The best way is to say, “I had a real problem. Nothing I did was working. The only thing that helped was Jesus.” Give your testimony. Tell how you needed peace or healing, how you were living with regret or wracked with grief, or how you had a bad relationship with someone important to you. Tell them how you asked God for help and how the help came. Tell them how following Jesus helps you on a daily basis.

People will rarely challenge your telling of your personal experience. They may not react by saying, “Oh my God, I need Jesus now!” but you will have planted a seed. Jesus frequently talked about how the gospel and the kingdom of God were like seeds. (Mark 4:26; Luke 8:11) We are not responsible for having every seed sprout and grow into a big tree and produce fruit. What we are responsible for is planting the seeds.

Of course, you can also just say, “Would you like to go to church with me this Sunday? I get a lot out of it and I think you might like it.” A 2-year study revealed that as many as 9 out of 10 unchurched people would go to church if someone would just invite them. Evangelism can be as simple as that.

Education can be thought of as nurturing the growing seeds of the gospel planted in people's minds. There's a lot more to God than the stripped down version one gets from evangelistic efforts. There's a lot more to being a Christian than going to church or following the Ten Commandments. There is a rich heritage of Christians dealing with issues and questions from the most basic to the most challenging. There is a smorgasbord of spiritual practices that the church has developed to help people who respond to different approaches in getting closer to God. By sharing them with each other, we help each other grow in Christ.

Bishop Frade, who ordained me, liked to tell this joke: What do you get when you cross an Episcopalian with a Jehovah's Witness? Someone who knocks on your door but has nothing to say. I think that's true of a lot of mainstream churches. That's why this sermon is about evangelism and education. The reason I've spent most of this time on evangelism is that most mainstream churches are quite good when it comes to education in the faith. We offer lots of information about and instructions for living with God. But that does us no good if we don't learn to get people to come to church in the first place.

Our first duty is to tell people the good news of how Jesus can free us from whatever dominates or enslaves us. And that means living lives that display that God is liberating us from our sins. Which also means being honest and repentant when we slip. It means forgiving others so that they can believe that our God is forgiving. It means reaching out and helping those who need help as if they were Jesus. If our actions match our words, and we make our words audible, we will have more success in getting people to come to church. And once they are here, we can share the wealth of knowledge and treasured wisdom that our generous God has in store for his people.

Originally preached on March 7, 2010. It has been revised and updated.

SWEEPS: Worship

With the decline of newspapers, it's hard to follow your favorite comic strips. So I was glad to see that most of them can be found on gocomics.com. One that can be found there is Rose is Rose. If you have followed it for any length of time, then you probably know what a “garbage moment” is. Rose's husband Jimbo is that rare man who likes to take out the garbage. It's not because he enjoys carrying smelly bags. What he likes is that it is an excuse for him to stand under the night sky, alone, taking in the moon and all the stars. I can't say that I am wild about taking out the trash but I understand the awe that overtakes someone when looking up at the star-spangled heavens. As someone who grew up in the city, I never get over the sheer number of stars one can see out here far away from the light pollution of a major metropolitan area. Truly the heavens are telling the glory of God! (Psalm 19:1)

Worship is one uniquely human activity that will never be explained away by resorting to evolution. It has no strictly practical value from an earthly perspective, nor does it help you pass on your genes. Yet worship is a universal phenomenon. It goes back to the beginning of human history. The earliest song we've uncovered is a hymn to the goddess wife of the moon god. Why do we have this need to worship?

I once read an article about couples who have been married for 50 years or more. One was 90 year old Martin Spencer and his wife of 67 years, Ruth. One of the secrets of the longevity of their relationship is that he writes her a love letter every day. Writing it not only endears him to her, it reminds him of the reasons that he chose her and why he's fortunate that she chose him. People who are married tend to live longer. Worship works like that. It reminds us of what we love about God and how much he loves us. And that is good for us. Studies have shown that attending church weekly is associated with better mental and physical health, a reduced risk of depression and anxiety, increased happiness and life satisfaction, a reduced risk of addiction to drugs and alcohol, a sense of belonging, reduced feelings of loneliness and isolation, and a sense of purpose and meaning in life.

The word “worship” literally means to ascribe worth to someone or something. So it's important that what you worship is worth it. If you don't worship the God who is just, loving and forgiving, then odds are you will worship something else, something less worthy. And the next most powerful thing in the world is government. And at the top of every government is a ruler. That's really what the Communists worshipped. That's what the Fascists worshipped. In both of these cases they ended up worshiping a man: Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini. In each case they put a particular form of government, built around the cult of a man, above all else and ended up killing more people in the 20^th century than all the wars, crusades, witch hunts and inquisitions did in 4000 years of recorded history. Which is why the Bible tells us, “Do not trust in princes, or in human beings, in whom there is no help.” (Psalm 146:3)

When you value anything above God—an idea, a political party, a country, even your family—all relationships get disordered and distorted. In Christopher Guest's mockumentary Best of Show we see a couple whose show dog is the most important thing in their life. Everything is structured around keeping the canine happy. And their relationship is suffering. Though the portrayal of the couple is satirical, you can't help but feel that you have met people like this before. It may not have been a dog but for some people their whole life revolves around something that in the grand scheme of things is rather trivial. And it may have bothered you, even though you can't quite put your finger on exactly what it was that made you feel uncomfortable.

I think it is the lack of a sense of proportion. I'm a fan of science fiction but I have met people whose homes are shrines to the shows and movies they love above all else. I have met people whose lives were devoted to hunting and their homes were full of guns and mounted animal heads. The 2009 documentary series Little Miss Perfect shows parents devoted to their kids, or more accurately, to turning their kids into tiny beauty queens. All these things have gone way beyond being a hobby and have crossed over into an obsession. The people involved feel that it gives their lives value. But at what cost?

We tend to become what we worship. That's because we were created in the image of God. The desire to become like what we worship is programmed into us. But like a baby duck imprinting on the family dog and trying to act like a dog, sometimes we focus on the wrong things and mistake them for what we should love and emulate. One of the reasons we worship is to remind ourselves of whom we love and why.

There are 3 words in Hebrew that get translated into the one English word “worship.” The most common of these Hebrew words literally means “to bend at the waist.” It is a gesture of deference. In the ancient Near East, the bow was more elaborate, often involving getting on one's knees or totally prostrating oneself. And because our minds and bodies are connected, the physical action triggers a psychological state. We acknowledge that what we are bowing to is higher than us, not only spatially but spiritually.

In some churches it is common, though not mandatory, to bow at certain points: when approaching the altar, when the cross or gospel progresses down the aisle, and at the name of Jesus in the Gloria and in the creed. It is a gesture of humility, which is essential to worship. To worship something is to recognize its spiritual superiority.

The second Hebrew word translated as “worship” means “service.” This is used in the same sense as when we talk of acolytes or others serving at the altar during worship. It involves participating in a ritual. Human beings love to observe rituals. We have rituals when getting up in the morning or when entering our workplace or leaving it. The need for rituals seems to be inborn. If you don't believe me, try altering the way you tuck a small child into bed or radically changing the way you read their favorite bedtime story. Your most treasured memories of your parents or grandparents are probably the little family rituals you observed together. One of mine is how, when my dad owned a tavern, my brother and I would sit at the bar before it opened on Saturday mornings, watching cartoons on the TV and eating cereal out of beer mugs. Rituals enhance our sense of security. They reinforce our sense of order, that everything is where it should be and in the proper relationship to everything else. If you are planning to do something special for someone you love, like a wedding or a birthday party, you want to get how it's done just right. The same is true in worship.

The third Hebrew word to be used for “worship” means “reverence.” Sometimes it is translated “fear” as in “the fear of the Lord.” Again, this is a matter of proportion. We may honor certain people and worthy institutions but our utmost reverence should be reserved for God.

We express our reverence for God through worship. We sing his praise. We pray to him. We listen to his word. We come to his table and commune with him and his people. We contemplate his sacrifice.

Sacrifice is at the heart of worship. In ancient Israel, at certain times of the year, or in response to certain transitions in life, or in response to certain sins, you would bring an animal to the temple to be sacrificed. Its blood would be sprinkled on the altar and portions of its body would be burned while other parts would be eaten. We are so removed from agricultural life these days that the idea of killing animals is repugnant to us. But this was not a sign that the lives of the animals were cheap but rather that they were valuable. They gave you food. They gave you clothing. They pulled your plow and made it possible for you to turn the rocky soil into fruit and grain. They were your wealth. So you didn't kill an animal lightly. To turn it over to the temple to give thanks for the birth of a child or to atone for your sins was a huge sacrifice. It showed the depth of your repentance or of your thankfulness.

At the center of our faith is the sacrifice of Jesus. God becomes a human being to live as one of us and to offer himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. You could say that his death on the cross was an act of worship. He was showing the depth of our sin, the extent to which we have perverted the gifts God has given us and converted them into the instruments of our self-destruction. Jesus was showing how much God both abhors that sin and how much he loves us.

Jesus showed how much higher our God is spiritually than we are, in that he, God incarnate, is willing to give his life to save us, akin to a heart donor. And it is only fair that we reciprocate. We come to the table of the Lord and hold out our empty hands, in essence exchanging our empty life for his life, one full of love and generosity and forgiveness and hope.

Sacrifice doesn't simply mean giving something up. At its root, it means making something sacred. By giving our lives to him, we make them sacred. And we receive them back, transformed.

We become what we worship. If we worship a God who is not only just but merciful, not only loving but love itself, that is what we become. (1 John 3:2, 4:8) But because God is love, we can only truly worship God in loving relationship with others. It's easy to stand under the starry sky and let awe overwhelm you. It is harder to see the divine image in messy, contrary human beings. Those gurus who retire to the mountains and those hermits who move into caves are taking the easy way out. The real test of faith is living it out in real life. And worship should be a way of life, not just an hour on Sunday. We should acknowledge God in everything we do. We should serve him in every action. We should make sacred every part of our life.

What we do on Sundays and on holy days is concentrated worship. We are building up reserves of reverence, sacks of sacrifice, a surplus of service so we can get through the week. It is recommended that you also do this on your own each day to keep up your momentum. In the Episcopal church, the Book of Common Prayer has the complete services for Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and Compline, as well as a schedule of Bible readings for the Daily Office. There are even one-page personal devotions for morning, noon and night, like 5 hour energy blasts for the busy Christian. The book of Evangelical Lutheran Worship has its own versions of those as does the Roman Catholic missal. But that doesn't mean we can neglect the Sabbath, the weekly day of rest and reverence we need to lead a balanced life.

Last week we spoke of stewardship as an overarching way of looking at our life in God. Today we have looked at worship in the same way. There is no contradiction. We were put in this world to take care of it for God. Think of the world as something intended as a temple of God and all of its things as sacred vessels. Some need to be cleaned up. Some need to be found and restored. Some just need to be put in their proper relationship to everything else. And so everything should be treated with respect and everyone, our fellow ministers and potential fellow worshipers, should be treated with love.

Originally preached on February 28, 2010. It has been revised and updated.

SWEEPS: Stewardship

There's an inside joke in the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in which the title character tells a newcomer that her town of Sunnydale, which is located over a hellmouth, usually has an apocalypse every May. Of course that was when the broadcast TV season used to end and that's why Buffy always had her final face off with the big bad vampire, demon, goddess, witch or whatever that month. They wanted you to tune in. But you may have noticed that there are other times of the year when there are a cluster of TV characters getting married, or giving birth or dying. They are in November and February. TV networks use the ratings of those 3 months to set their advertising rates. So that's when they schedule major events to take place in regular TV series and why they often preempt poorly performing shows and replace them with specials. They call them Sweeps Weeks.

We have something similar in churches. In the first part of the calendar year, priests and pastors of large denominations have to compile their attendance numbers and financial numbers for their parochial reports. Besides the average Sunday attendance, I had to send in the attendance figures for Easter. And I used to have to do it for Christmas as well. The church doesn't call them the Sweeps, but oddly enough, that word has been used as an acronym for 6 important activities that Christians should carry out in or through the church: Stewardship, Worship, Education, Evangelism, Pastoral care, and Service. And since Lent is one of the seasons of the church year that is focused on spiritual disciplines, we are going to look at these for this and the next 4 Sundays.

We start with stewardship and you don't need to be psychic to hear the inaudible sighs of dismay. Sadly, stewardship has come to mean nothing more than the church begging for money. I have heard people say that religion is just a scam for making money. These people do not go to church. If they did attend the average church in America, which typically has less than 100 people, they'd realize that most clergy do not go into the ministry to make money. If we did so, then we're stupid. The Joel Olsteens in this profession are as few as are the Howard Sterns in my old profession of radio. The vast majority of people in ministry will never get rich. We do it because we are called to it and we love it.

And stewardship existed before money did. In fact, you could say it was humanity's first and primary duty. In Genesis 2:5, we are told that before the creation of humans, there was no one to work the ground. There was originally no gardener in the Garden of Eden. That was to be our role. (Genesis 2:15) And that fact makes God's command to subdue the earth sound a lot less rapacious. We're to take care of the earth and its inhabitants in the same way a gardener does. He imposes an appreciative order upon the flora and the fauna in his care. We are to be stewards of the earth, not destroyers of it.

The word “steward” comes from the Old English for “hall keeper.” The great hall was the home of a lord and the steward was the person who took care of his finances and property. This was to be our proper role in creation, and it is obvious that we have failed. We have not merely filled the earth; we have overrun it and blighted a good deal of it. Even leaving ecology aside, we have not taken care of its creatures, which includes our fellow human beings. In fact, we have treated each other as badly as we have treated non-human creation.

It is this behavior in particular that is given as the reason for the Genesis flood. It says, “The earth was ruined in the sight of God; the earth was filled with violence.” (Genesis 6:11) The Hebrew word for violence is used in other contexts to include injustice, cruelty, assault, murder and rape. When God commanded us to fill the earth, he did not mean to fill it with violence and evil. This is what makes God “grieve in his heart” and causes him to regret creating humanity. (Genesis 6:6)

So it's interesting that when Jesus, the firstborn of the new creation, is resurrected on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene originally thinks he is the gardener. (John 20:15) In a sense she is right. He is here to do what our ancestors didn't—put God's world right. And as his followers, Christ's body on earth, it becomes our task as well.

So stewardship can be seen as a broad mandate to treat all of creation, including our fellow humans, as belonging to God. Which means we do, too. So when we talk about stewardship we usually talk about how we as individual Christians deal with all that God has given into our care, especially our time, talent and treasure.

Time is what our lives on earth are made of. Time is a creation of the eternal God and so belongs to him. He has entrusted to each of us a certain amount of time at a certain point in history. We are to be stewards of however much time has been given to us and we are to use it for him. That means spending time not only worshipping him but obeying his commands to love others, to help the needy, to protect the oppressed, to act justly, to make peace, and to spread the gospel. Loving your spouse and family is a good stewardship of your time; working at the community food pantry is as well. Doing your job well counts too, as does signing up for activities listed in the church bulletin. And, yes, you need time to relax and rest. Bad stewardship of one's time would be devoting countless hours to activities that do not contribute to the long-term wellbeing of anybody or anything—or worse, spending time doing things that destroy people, other living things or our ecosystem.

I understand that the broadness of that last statement may leave some folks raising questions about using animals for medical research or developing land. However such things should always be evaluated as to whether they qualify as valid exceptions to the general rule. For example, we are supposed to consider whether an act of killing is self-defense or some other valid exception to the commandment not to murder. (Numbers 35:22-25)

Talent has come to mean an “ability of a superior quality” according to the American Heritage Dictionary. It often refers to an artistic ability. And defined that way, it leaves most of us out. For our purposes, let's define a talent as something you can do well. It doesn't mean you are necessarily better at it than others. Not everyone in a choir is a soloist but they are able to sing well enough and blend harmoniously with others. That's a talent. Some people have a talent for words without rising to the level of a Shakespeare. Others have a talent for numbers, though they may not be able to chart the trajectory of a space launch. And there are talents that might not be recognized as such. A talent for encouraging people or for helping them articulate what they mean to say or for just listening can be incredibly valuable. The talent for seeing what others don't is also vital. I think there is a talent for knowing when to say, “Enough discussion; it's time to decide.” There are lots of talents out there that we might not put on a stage or in front of a camera. There are talents that might not be easy to define but they are important nevertheless.

God's Spirit has distributed countless talents among us. (1 Corinthians 12:7) With his help, we need to discover and develop them. And then use them as part of our stewardship of this earth. We should be on the lookout for the talents of those around us. We should point them out to the persons who display them and encourage them to nurture and grow them. And spotting talent is itself a talent.

As for being a good steward of our treasure, money is one way of quantifying how much we value an item, experience, service, talent or period of time. Admittedly it is a very imperfect form of measuring value. We pay celebrity sports figures much more than we pay P.E. teachers. For that matter, we pay people who play teachers, cops, and healthcare professionals in movies and TV way more than we pay real teachers, cops and healthcare professionals. And that calls into question how much we understand the actual value of things.

I remember reading an article years ago that said the Great Recession of 2008 was even hurting strip clubs in Las Vegas. It gave as an example a club filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because it was only making between $20,000 and $26,000 a week! That's a minimum of $1,040,000 a year! A Google search didn't give me the average income of a church in this country but I did find a statistic that the average amount that a typical church member gives comes to just over $1000 a year. And since 68% of American churches have less than 100 members, most must operate on less than $100,000 a year. That's a tenth of the income of a failing strip club. And it has to cover the pastor's salary and housing, utilities and maintenance of the church building, and any staff like a paid secretary. So what does this say about the relative value we place on these two establishments?

Should churches follow that model? Should they serve more than wine? Should they put more attractive talent up there in the pulpit? Should they have private rooms where you can take communion alone? Should they care more about appearances? The problem is that a strip club is really about fantasy. A church should be about truth.

Churches don't have a cover charge or a membership fee. They don't, like colonial churches used to, make you pay more for a private pew. What they do offer you is time to pray to God and to praise him. Churches using the lectionary offer you 4 generous helpings of God's word as well as insights into it and into what it says about God's holy, just, loving and forgiving nature. They offer you a time to sing out loud, regardless of your talent in that area. They offer you a cross section of your community, people you otherwise might not get to know. They offer you a place to celebrate births, bless marriages and commemorate deaths, opportunities to share your joys and sorrows with a community that will support you and pray for you. They offer you a place to bring your children to learn a worldview based on reverence, compassion, morality, self-control and love.

They offer potluck meals for the price of bringing one dish, with opportunities to enjoy what others have lovingly prepared. They offer you the Lord's supper, his body and blood, to strengthen you for the week ahead. They offer you absolution and blessings. They offer you a place to come for encouragement, comfort, counseling and community.

What's that worth to you? Remember, stewardship is a spiritual discipline. While most of your income is probably spent on the physical basics, such as food, clothing and shelter, how much of your time, talent and treasure do you spend on the spiritual basics? How much instead do you spend on entertainment, electronic toys, junk foods and other things you consume purely for personal pleasure?

Speaking of which, everyone has noticed how the stuff you view on your phone or even talk about in its presence tends to follow you around on the internet. Bots listen and the cookies that websites embed in your device make sure that the ads you see reflect your interests. They are evidence of what you really value and spend your time, talents and money on, as advertisers know. Which brings to mind the old saying: “If being a Christian were a criminal offense, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Relying on the evidence of how you used your time, talents and treasures, would you feel comfortable making an accounting to God on your stewardship of the life and gifts that he has given you?

Originally preached on February 21, 2010. It has been revised and updated.

Feedback

It's called the sixth sense by some. It's proprioception and it is your body's sense of where it and its parts are in space and what they are doing. Lacking this sense is rare. There are only about 7 people worldwide who have lost it. Ian Waterman got sick one day and went to bed. When he awoke he could not control his body enough to get out of bed. It was not that his ability to move his body had left him but without proprioception he did not know where, say, his legs were and whether they were doing what he wanted them to do, like swing out of bed and plant themselves on the floor. He eventually learned to walk again by mentally breaking down any large behavior into a series of simple steps, looking at the limb he wanted to work and consciously willing it through those steps in sequence. Everything we might do subconsciously, like fish a potato chip out of a bag, he has to plan out and then watch his body parts as they do it. On the episode of Radio Lab in which he was interviewed, he told of the time that a pretty girl crossed his path and caused him to stumble. When he shifted his attention to her for just a second, his feet began to falter because he was not looking at them and telling them what to do.

The only people who might have a clue of what Waterman is dealing with are those who get very drunk. One of the standard field sobriety tests is to have the suspected drunken person close his eyes and try to touch his nose. If you are inebriated enough, it degrades your proprioception to the point that you cannot find your nose with your eyes closed. Which means that Ian Waterman can never turn off the lights because if he can't see his body, he is as good as paralyzed.

The main problem is that Ian Waterman gets no feedback from his body. When you or I wake up in the dark, we nevertheless know where our body parts are. We can make them move when we don't see them. We can scratch our chin or find the light switch without looking. We can find a chip in a bag while watching TV because of a sense that we take for granted. If we didn't have this feedback, it is not hard to see how you could, say, smash your fingers in the process of closing a door or a drawer without looking.

You could make an argument that many organizations suffer from this condition, their right hand not knowing what their left is doing, so to speak, and consequently getting in the way of themselves. You could argue that many people live their lives that way.

Lent is very much an exercise in feedback. We often suffer from a lack of spiritual proprioception. Lent is a time to turn on the light, see where the various parts of our life are and observe how they are doing. It is a time to consider whether we are putting ourselves in danger of, or are already doing, spiritual damage.

In the Invitation to a Holy Lent, which follows after this sermon, certain spiritual disciples are recommended. One is self-examination and it is the essential first step in the process. We often pick up unconscious habits of mind and behavior that could use some scrutiny. For instance, Christians often hold onto certain cultural values even when they contradict Biblical principles. Here in America we live very materialistic lives while claiming to be spiritual. We create entertainment made up of behaviors like violence, idolatry and adultery that we supposedly condemn in real life. We have tried to wed a rugged individualism that says “you need to look out for number one” to a faith in which the highest value is self-sacrificial love for others. We need to turn on the light, recognize and deal with these clashes between our society and our beliefs.

Personally, we need to see where we are in our relationships with God, with others and with ourselves. Are we progressing in becoming more Christlike or have we stalled? Are we regressing and becoming more adversarial towards God, others and ourselves? Are we being honest with ourselves?

We need to see if, in our spiritual slumber, we have grabbed ahold of greed, or gotten tangled up in lust, or kicked out in envy, or drifted into laziness or gluttony, or struck out in rage or arrogance. And then we need to change our position, which is repentance, and marshal our efforts to get where we should be. Maybe we need to break it down into small steps like Ian Waterman. We need to repair what's been damaged, through humility and by both giving and asking for forgiveness. To do all that we need to be connected to a source of power, which means speaking to God in prayer.

And so that we don't stumble as we walk with God, we need to avoid distractions. This requires a measure of self-denial. Many find fasting helpful. But since staying in step with Jesus is not natural to fallen humans, we need to focus on each step in our journey.

And there is a map of the journey we must take that has guided people for millennia: the word of God. Reading and meditating on it will lead you to a treasure of truths about ourselves and about the God who calls us to be his companions on the way.

But, you may ask, is this the best way to begin our journey—bewailing our sins and putting ashes on our heads as we remember that we will one day die? Isn't that something that will stunt our spiritual growth rather than nurture it?

Jesus said, “I am the vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.” (John 15:1-2) Things that are harmful and even some things that are just not helpful need to be removed from our lives if we are to fulfill our purpose and produce the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

And if we are not consciously part of the process of removing them, we can stumble. They can also be removed in a more painful way. Michael Gill was born into privilege and rose to a high position in a major advertising agency. Then he lost it all. He was fired from his job. An affair resulted in a newborn son and a ruined marriage. Finally he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. At the lowest point in his life, Gill was offered a job at the Starbucks he used to patronize. In cleaning toilets and serving customers, he found peace and a better grasp of the truly important things in life. Most of us would find it humiliating to be reduced to such a job at the age of 63. But as Gill sees things, it took him 60 years to finally see things clearly.

Lent is often seen as a time of self-flagellation and an unhealthy preoccupation with our sins. But Gill's experience shows us that the outcome of a drastic re-evaluation of your life can lead to a healthy appreciation of what is essential. You may have to let go of the things which the world values, but that doesn't have to be the end of the world. Seen properly, it can be the beginning of rebirth.

Originally preached on February 17, 2010. It has been revised and updated.

An Invitation to a Holy Lent

Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. The season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians have to renew their repentance and faith.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a Holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.

(from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, pp. 264-265)

Unveiled

The scriptures referred to are Exodus 34:29-35, 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2, and Luke 9:28-36.

Facial coverings are meant to conceal. Aside from brides and children on Halloween, veils and masks usually hide what's ugly—the twisted face of the Phantom of the Opera, the scarred proprietor of the wax museum in the Vincent Price movie House of Wax, and the true identity of every monster in Scooby Doo. The Ku Klux Klan wore masks to hide the ugly truth that some of your neighbors were violent racists. Bank robbers have worn stocking masks, an updated version of the veil, to make their squashed features look ugly and thereby disguise their identities. Even the curtain, the veil's larger “cousin,” covers up unpleasant things, like the messy interior of your house from passersby, or in the Wizard of Oz, where it hides the ugly truth that the awesome and powerful wizard is just a theatrical trick of an old conman. Even superheroes wear masks to hide their identities from ugly retaliation by their archenemies.

In contrast, Moses used a veil to cloak the reflected glory of God. Every time he came back from talking to God, his face shone. And it freaked out the Israelites. They probably weren't listening very closely to the words of God that Moses was delivering because they were too busy trying not to look at his weirdly shining face. Once Moses realized this was happening, he covered his face with a veil to minimize the effect.

By the way, the Hebrew word which means “beams of light radiating” was also used for horns projecting from a head. St. Jerome, translator of the Bible into Latin, used the wrong word, making it sound like Moses grew horns. That's why Michelangelo's otherwise magnificent statue of Moses has those two distracting horns on his head. This mistranslation also led medieval antisemites to say that Jews had horns, making them less human and more satanic.

But the real significance of the incident recorded in our passage from Exodus is that God is light. He appears to Moses as a burning bush, and to the Israelites as a column of fire leading them through the wilderness and as fire on the mountain where Moses goes to receive the law. Humans are created in the image of God and are meant to reflect his radiance. Moses spent 40 days and 40 nights on Mt. Sinai and literally reflected this splendor. But the unfiltered glory of God makes most people uncomfortable. So Moses relented and veiled his face so his followers won't have to see what a person who is close to God is like.

This incident is not discussed much by Christians, although it bears on two of the other passages in today's lectionary. Our gospel, Luke, follows both Matthew and Mark in telling the story of the transfiguration right after the turning point in Jesus' ministry. After Peter declares him to be the Messiah, Jesus starts telling the disciples that he will be crucified. All of his talk about his death and resurrection was freaking the Twelve out and so Jesus takes the core of the group, Peter, James and John, up to the top of a mountain in order for them to talk to God about it.

While they are praying, the appearance of Jesus' face alters and his clothes become dazzlingly bright. And if that weren't enough, standing next to Jesus are Moses and Elijah, the greatest representatives of the Law and the Prophets in the Hebrew Bible. They are talking about Jesus's coming departure at Jerusalem. Both of these men left the world in unusual ways. Elijah was taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot. Moses died on a mountain overlooking the promised land and was buried by God in an unknown place. And Jesus will have the strangest departure from this world ever. So they are backing him up by endorsing his message that he will first die and then rise again.

But the disciples aren't listening. Shaking off the sleepiness of a long prayer session, they are agog at Jesus' guests. Peter babbles that they ought to build some tabernacles or shelters for the three holy figures. Even though Peter is not thinking clearly, he is perhaps remembering the tabernacle that the Israelites carried with them in the wilderness. It became a mobile shrine and the place to meet God during the exodus. Perhaps Peter is thinking they can capture the glory of the moment and make it last by building three tents so they can stay on the mountain like gurus and grace Judea with the word of God. Or maybe he is thinking that if he can get Jesus to settle down on this mountain with his friends, he won't go to Jerusalem and get himself killed.

Whatever jumbled thoughts are in Peter's head, his words are cut off when a cloud engulfs them. Moses met God on Mt. Sinai by entering a cloud. And, just as what happened then, the voice in the cloud doesn't obscure things but clears them up. “This is my beloved son. Listen to him!” In other words, no more nonsense about telling the man you've just declared the Messiah that he doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to his death. Hear what he has to say!

And then there's no one left but Jesus and the disciples. And it's what everyone needed. Jesus gets the encouragement he needs to face the ordeal in Jerusalem. And the disciples see the glory of Jesus unveiled, even though they still don't understand exactly how what he's saying fits in with what they think they know about the Messiah.

Obvious parallels are there: Moses, mountaintops, clouds, shining faces, freaked out followers. But there are contrasts as well. Moses came down with a shining face and communicated what God told him but when Jesus comes down off of this mountain, nobody's face is glowing and the three disciples are too affected to tell anyone.

In his epistle, Paul connects the glory of God both veiled and unveiled. The glory of God that was reflected in Moses' face was dimmed and eventually faded. And Paul says that same veil mutes the splendor of God's written revelation. People tend to read it and then filter out what is truly marvelous about it.

That's true of many preachers and churches. They take what should be good news and they muffle it. They flatten it and make it sound like any other inspirational message. The leader of a retreat I went to said that he knew of a church where the vestry (board of lay leaders) took the priest to task for talking too much about Jesus. “How are we going to attract new people if everything is all about Jesus?” There are those who would rather the Episcopal church become the liturgical arm of the Unitarians.

The Evangelicals can filter the gospel too, if every sermon is about salvation, especially a narrow interpretation of it that makes it all about the afterlife and never about this one, or all about your private life and not your public one as well. The opposite error is when a church makes the gospel all about social issues as if Christianity were just another social program or a party's political platform. All of these unbalanced, one-note ways of reading the gospel mute how glorious it is. Usually this is to mask how radical it is.

The Lord is the Spirit, Paul reminds us. And God's Holy Spirit is not barred from any area of life or creation. He is not merely a still small voice in our head, nor is he the voice of the mob. He is not confined only to personal spirituality, nor to the social arena. He is not excluded from sexual behavior nor is he primarily concerned with that subject. The changes the Spirit makes in us have repercussions in every part of our individual and corporate lives. He is God without borders.

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” That's a passage of scripture rarely preached on because it's scary. And that's because when we say freedom we mean different things. Freedom means one thing when a teenager says it and another thing when a recovering addict says it. It has a different emphasis when said by an artist, by a cancer survivor, and by an immigrant. It can even mean different things to different prisoners, if one is in the general population and one is on death row. That's because freedom is never really defined until you ask, “What is it freedom from, and what is it freedom to do?”

From the context here, Paul is talking about freedom from a diminished, narrow sense of the gospel and freedom to fully reflect the glory of God. We are to mirror God's splendor and reflect it to each other and to the world. By doing so we are transformed into the image of God, moving from one degree of his glory to the next. Our God is infinite and no one Christian can reflect his image in its entirety. But all of us can come together to reflect the many facets of God. It's like one of those portraits of Jesus that are made up of hundreds of little photos of people, using them like pieces of a mosaic. It wouldn't work if we were all the same. We need variation and contrast to make an accurate picture of our huge, holy, loving God.

Recognizing that we all reflect some aspects of God and that by the mercy of God we are called to unique ministries that combine to reflect his glory, we must not lose heart, Paul says. We also need to make sure we don't dull our ability to reflect the nature of God by doing shameful things. Every time the secret sins of Christians are revealed, it makes it harder for other people to see God's goodness.

We don't practice cunning, either. The world has various tricks to promote its version of things, using spin to make its point of view look different from what it really is. We are not to engage in such things. We are not to falsify the word of God. Or as Eugene Peterson translates this passage in The Message, “We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don't maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don't twist God's Word to suit ourselves.”

Ultimately, it comes down to trust. Do we trust God's Word to liberate and heal and save people from their self-destructive ways? Do we trust the God who is behind scripture? If not, maybe we need to look with fresh eyes at his revelation, which in Greek literally means “unveiling.” God has nothing to hide. Do we?

Originally preached on February 14, 2010. It has been revised and updated.