Sermon for Ash Wednesday 2/22/12 Emmanuel, Mercer Island

I once heard a very wise person say that

            repentance is too important for God to leave it all up to us.

As the years go by I am seeing more clearly

            not only the truth of this statement

                        but also the implications.

Welcome to Lent!

            And as we begin this Lent I want to say something to you

                        that you may not have heard before.

Anyone who has been around the Episcopal Church for a few years

            and has shown up on Ash Wednesday

                        to get the ashes rubbed in the shape of a cross on the forehead

            will recognize the scripture readings.

These readings can become so familiar

            that we end up not looking at them more than at surface level,

and then people tend to fall into patterns and rituals for observing Lent

            that just plain miss the point altogether.

And this gets reinforced by the Ash Wednesday liturgy itself.

In this liturgy you will be told to observe a holy Lent

            by self-examination and repentance;

            by prayer, fasting, and self-denial;

            and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.

And what perennially happens is that people will think

            that the ashes on the forehead is the repentance part (but really it isn’t).

They may give up desserts or chocolate for their fasting and self-denial,

            and maybe they will read a devotional book

            and, to cover the prayer part, try to get to church more often.

All done in good Anglican moderation.

If this sounds anything like what you have known,

            then sit up and pay attention,

because I’m going to tell you what repentance really means.

You probably know that the word repent means “to turn around,”

to change course, reverse direction, return to your beginning point, the Source.

In other words, the way you are going is in the wrong direction,

            and you are getting farther away from what is life giving and holy.

Repentance is also about having a change of mind,

            and what does that mean?

There is a change in what I have held as my reality, my world view,

            when something happens and I experience a new reality,

                        a new perspective on life,

so that I can no longer think the way I used to,

            and as a corollary what I do changes too.

Well, how do we get to repentance?

Do I say to myself, “You’re going in the wrong direction.

            You should change your mind.

            Let’s try out a new take on reality.”

No.

            Repentance happens to us.

Something happens, we have an encounter or interchange with others,

            something that catches us up, sometimes with a devastating effect,

and we stand aghast at ourselves.

We did not initiate the repentance, we did not choose to repent,

            but now we find that we are very much in the midst of it.

Isn’t that much more like what really happens?

This, my friends, is God’s merciful intervention in our lives.

God is the giver of repentance.

It says so in the Bible in more than one place.

            Start with Acts 11:18 and Romans 2:4, for example.

            Look them up and then come talk to me about it.

God is the giver of repentance.

You see, repentance is much too important for God to leave it all up to us.

Lent is about having a season to prepare for Holy Week and Easter,

            a whole 40 days to get ready so that we will be able to better grasp

                        what Good Friday and the Feast of the Resurrection are all about.

That’s it. 

            That is all that Lent needs to be about.

If we can get it, if we can take in

            just what it is that Jesus did in going to the cross,

            how it was more than just sins that he was taking on,

how he took on all the suffering that ever was and ever will be,

            and released this huge power and energy of resurrection,

and made that all available to us by his continuing presence in the world

                        through the Holy Spirit.

But we don’t get it,

            so we need Lent.

We need 40 days or 40 years or a whole lifetime.

And even at that it takes God’s intervention in our lives

            to bring about real repentance.

HOWEVER we can cooperate.

            We can cooperate with this process off being repented.

Repentance is not about self-affliction and asceticism and breast beating.

Our part in repentance is making ourselves available,

            making ourselves available for God’s merciful act of repenting us.

It’s a matter of trust.

Can we trust God to have our best interests at heart?

            I’m going to risk that,

which means I will need to be open to considering

            that all events in life have the potential of being in my best interest,

                        events both lovely and gruesome.

It’s a matter of trust.

So do you want to know a way, a good Lenten practice

            for being open in trust to God’s merciful act of repenting us?

Meditate.

            You knew I’d say that.

Meditation is one way,

            I must say a particularly simple, accessible and efficiently effective way.

Do the praying, do the fasting, do the self-denial

            (by the way, meditation is a form of self-denial and fasting),

read the Bible –

            that’s the book the bishop recommends this year for Lenten reading.           

These are all ways in which we can be open

                                                                        to repentance happening in our lives.

Remember, the purpose of repentance is to return us to the Source of Life,

            to return us to the embrace of God,

who like the father in the parable about the prodigal son,

            has never ceased to watch for us,

who sees us from afar and runs to meet us,

who before we get through our litany of penitence

            has already killed the fatted calf and started the party.

What we are doing today in this liturgy

            is to set us up for 40 days of spiritual practice

so that when we get to Easter we just may realize the immensity of it all.

And this year I would encourage you

            to take home with you the worship booklet and read again Psalm 103.

This Psalm gets overlooked with everything else happening

                        in the Ash Wednesday liturgy.

We’re more likely to remember Psalm 51 which we will be reciting shortly

            than Psalm 103 that we read after the Joel passage.

Here’s the Easter goal for us:

    1   Bless the LORD, O my soul, *

          and all that is within me, bless his holy Name.

    2   Bless the LORD, O my soul, *

          and forget not all his benefits.

    3   He forgives all your sins *

          and heals all your infirmities;

    4   He redeems your life from the grave *

          and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;

    5   He satisfies you with good things, *

          and your youth is renewed like an eagle's.

    8   The LORD is full of compassion and mercy, *

          slow to anger and of great kindness.

    9   He will not always accuse us, *

          nor will he keep his anger for ever.

    10  He has not dealt with us according to our sins, *

          nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.

    11  For as the heavens are high above the earth, *

          so is his mercy great upon those who fear him.

    12  As far as the east is from the west, *

          so far has he removed our sins from us.

    13  As a father cares for his children, *

          so does the LORD care for those who fear him.

And now here is the segue into what comes next in the liturgy:

    14  For he himself knows whereof we are made; *

          he remembers that we are but dust.

    15  Our days are like the grass; *

          we flourish like a flower of the field;

    16  When the wind goes over it, it is gone, *

          and its place shall know it no more.

If there is anything that can bring us to repentance,

            it would be death, the reminder of our own mortality.

Death is a gift that makes us look at the precious gift of life we have been given.

You know, we all have to face this sometime;

            none of us get of here alive.

Welcome to Lent.

Sermon for Last Epiphany 2/19/12 Emmanuel, Mercer Island

O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son

                        revealed his glory upon the holy mountain:

            Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance,

                        may be strengthened to bear our cross,

                        and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory;

                                    through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

This is the last Sunday in the Epiphany season,

                        and it’s always the same Gospel reading:

            the story of the Transfiguration paralleled in Matthew, Mark and Luke.

The Transfiguration, we can say, is the ultimate expression

            of what the word Epiphany means:

Epiphany meaning manifestation – the revelation of God through Jesus.

Epiphany is the season of light:

                        Jesus as the Light of the world

From starlight leading gentile wise men to Bethlehem

            to the heavens parting at the baptism

                        and God’s voice declaring,

                                    “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him,”

            through each Sunday in Epiphany with a representative story

                        about the Kingdom of God revealed and manifested in Jesus,

            finally to this event of glory and radiance

                        with the dead raised and standing and talking with Jesus.

I love preaching on the Transfiguration.

It is one of my favorite stories.

It’s one of my favorite stories because

            there are so many different directions one can go in exploring it.

I’m sure you all remember each of the sermons on the Transfiguration

            that I’ve already preached here at Emmanuel!

So this year I will go off in a different direction.  There is always new material.

I’m recently back from a retreat,

            my usual winter 2 week silent meditation retreat,

                        which is such an important resource for anyone

            who claims to instruct others in meditation.

Meditation is very practical;

            besides the usually touted benefits of relaxation and stress relief,

it’s about self-awareness – how I respond to life situations and relationships.

            It’s about becoming more aware of reactivity and response-ability.

It’s about the veil being lifted and seeing the truth and telling the truth,

            and when that happens you can’t go back to ignorance about yourself,

                        so you can’t be the way you were before.

Meditation is transformative.

That is what I have found.

This is one way we can be “changed into his likeness from glory to glory”

            as the collect for the day puts it  --  becoming more like Jesus.

But transformation is not a self-improvement project;

            actually it’s a process of self-forgetting.

Because transformation is not my work

but the healing work of God’s mercy and love moving in the individual.

Hence in meditation it is important to cease doing,

            to sit still and awake and aware in utmost trust,

            breaking through the illusion of who’s really in control

                        and who am I.

But transformation, you might see, is a different spiritual process

            than transfiguration.

Look at the Gospel account of transfiguration:

Jesus is transfigured and begins radiating intense, bright light,

            and who shows up?  Moses and Elijah,

                        the two key figures representing all the Law and the Prophets,

                        figures who represent the full revelation of God

                                                and of God’s relationship with humankind.

One can only imagine what sort of incredible conversation is going on

            between Jesus and these extraordinary personages.

Then Peter bursts into the conversation, interrupts,

            and what does Peter say?

“Rabbi, it is good for us to be here.  Let’s make 3 dwellings.”

Let’s enshrine this extraordinary event.

Let’s contain it and preserve it, capture and cage it.

The point is

Peter is pulling back from this stupendous display of Light and glory,

            this revelation of Divine Presence

                        that outstrips all that Peter had previously considered Jesus to be.

It’s too much and he can’t bear it going any farther.

This is so typical, and we all do this –

            to pull back in our experiences of the Divine,

            self-contraction in the presence of such huge expansiveness of Being.

Even when we intend not to,

            the fear of the loss of self into the Divine is so great.

Truly, you cannot see the Face of God and live.

But this Epiphany continues to expand.

Now a cloud engulfs them -

            a cloud that connects to the stories of old from the sacred texts,

                        the cloud that led the Children of Israel through the Sinai desert,                                     the cloud that engulfed the Tent of Meeting,

                        the cloud that, in Isaiah 6, engulfed the Temple of Solomon.

And the Voice that speaks says,

            “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”

The Word of God from the 1^st Sunday in Epiphany

                                    at the baptism of our Lord in the Jordan

                        is repeated on this last Sunday in Epiphany:

            “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”  Hear him!

At the heart of the Jewish faith is the Shema:

Deut. 6:4 Hear [listen], O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.

Deut. 6:5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart,

and with all your soul, and with all your might.

This is what is written on the door posts and placed in the phylacteries

            and recited daily.

And now

            in the words spoken by the Divine Voice, the Voice of the Creator,

there has been a colossal appropriation of biblical history made here,

shifting from Moses and the Shema to Jesus.

Jesus is much more than Rabbi or Teacher,

            not containable by any of the known titles we give him

                        out of our limited experience of him.

The Transfigured Jesus is an ultimate Epiphany of Divine Presence,

            and, we could say, if God were to fully self-manifest,

            the world would be destroyed, disintegrated, blown away,

for if you see God face to face, you die.

One can see this as true when we examine what happens in meditation:

            when awareness expands in meditation,

            it can be like a revelation of God in that the self disappears.

The idea of an identified and distinct self disappears.

Now we should note, however,

            that Transfiguration is not unique to Jesus

There is the story about Moses and his face shining

            when he comes down from Mount Sinai after being face to face with God.

Elisha witnessed Elijah carried off in a sudden flash of radiance

            that Elisha could only describe as a fiery, speeding chariot.

Part of the spiritual tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church

            is the Prayer of the Heart, or the Jesus Prayer,

                        from which the Prayer of the Lamb derives,

            in which tradition, transfiguration was known.

There are stories of this from the Desert Fathers.

Then there is St. Seraphim of Sarov

[b. July 19, 1759, Kursk, Russia – d. January 2, 1833]

We have a verifiable eye-witness account of his transfiguration.

This is sharing in the inheritance of the saints in Light – Col. 1:12

or 1 Thess. 5:5 says that, “We are the children of Light.”

and in Eph. 5:8 we are told to walk as children of Light –

Some, a very few, like St. Seraphim of Sarov,

                        have actually walked as children of Light.

Well, very few of us – none that I have encountered –

            radiate Transfiguration Light.

I haven’t seen anyone literally “aglow with the Spirit” in that way.

Although some radiate to those around them such love or aliveness or joy

            that this can be perceived and recognized as extraordinary,

                        imparting spiritual light.

Some, very few,

            because when we encounter this in anyone, it is quite unforgettable.

We have not lived up to our inheritance of the saints in Light.

We have not so emulated Jesus in our lives

            that we also radiate Source Light manifesting the Divine to others.

But, and this may be of some relief,

            transfiguration is different from transformation.

The One who appeared transfigured in the energy of brilliant Light,

            is the One whose revealing presence

brings transformation to those who turn to him and follow him.

We prayed in the collect for today that

            “we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance,

            may be strengthened to bear our cross,

                        and changed into his likeness from glory to glory.”

Lent starts on Wednesday.

Lent is a good time to draw near to God,

            to be more willing to have Divine Presence revealed,

            to let Jesus touch and heal our lives,

                        transform us and change us,

            so that we may, at the last, be able to behold his glory,

                        to look into the radiance of transfiguration Light,

                                    Source Light, Divine Light,

            and be blown away in the best possible sense,

and be changed into his likeness,…

            …be changed.

Sermon for 3 Epiphany 1/22/12 Emmanuel, Mercer Island

In classic spiritual literature, the journey of faith has often been described

            as climbing a mountain.

The mountain top is the place of enlightenment, of spiritual bliss.

The view from the top is all encompassing.

Jesus took his closest followers with him up a mountain

            and was there transfigured before them.

And when Peter, James and John beheld this radiance

            they wanted to build shelters and stay there,

            so transcending was this experience.

I want to read to you a short passage from the book, Halfway Up the Mountain,

            ed. by Mariana Caplan

“Many people live at the bottom of the mountain. 

They make nice little villages there, even cities sometimes. 

They have families – and they love their families or they don’t –

            they find work and friends, they’re happy or they aren’t,

            and they go to church or temple or they don’t. 

And they die there.

“Far fewer, though still a sizable population of individuals, live in the foothills.  

They still have their families and jobs and communities,

but they strive to live by high moral standards, to treat others well, to learn             

and find meaning in their lives. 

They have some notion of God or Truth,

and may even attempt to pursue that Truth in some way,

            perhaps even to serve it.

“Less common still are those who live on the mountain,

            pitching their tents higher and higher up

            as they are able to adapt to the change in atmosphere. 

They often have families and friends, and consider life with them to be sacred.  

They strive to live lives of compassion. 

They recognize the value of the mountain, appreciate it,

            often devote their lives to ascending it,

            and do what they can to adjust

                        to its ever-changing and ever-demanding circumstances.

“Rare are those who have climbed the mountain…”

            and made it to the top.

In today’s gospel reading we hear about Jesus calling the first disciples,

            and how they left their livelihood, their careers, and even family

                        to follow Jesus.

They went with him to the top of the mountain – and beyond.

By the time they got to the Day of Pentecost

            they were completely cracked open,

and the Resurrection Spirit of Jesus poured into them,

            ignited them, and then gushed out of them

carrying the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth.

We today are benefitting and living in the legacy of their apostolic work.

Through them and their persistence in following in discipleship,

            the Resurrection Spirit of Jesus, the One who called them,

                        has inaugurated and sustained this thing we call the Church.

After all these passing years the Church has asserted

            that this call of Jesus to follow him in discipleship and witness

is extended to all of us.

But from that initial straight forward “follow me”

            we have gotten an increasing elaboration

            within the organization and structure of the Church

about how to answer that call of “follow me” –

the development of a process of tradition, authority and ordination,

            the emergence of a hierarchy of leadership,

all of this influenced by and integrated with the surrounding culture.

“Follow me” has been elaborated and organized into a complex structure.

Well, we live in a different world than Peter and Andrew, James and John.

I want now to say a word or two about this complex structure of the Church,

especially today, because this is a day in which we will be/have been

            focused on this peculiar institution,

as we take/took part in the annual meeting.

There is a difference between community and organization.

Community is the given condition of relationship lived by all beings,

            the GIVEN condition, organic, natural and ecologically inclusive.

Organization, on the other hand, is concerned with and focuses on

                        survival, growth, achievement and success.

Organization defines its membership on the basis of exclusion and separation                                     from the community of all living beings.

It is the means of association chosen by those who want to identify themselves

            very specifically in this way.

If you think about this in terms of organizations you know

                        – businesses, clubs, government –

            the self consciousness of the organization is directed inward

                        to achieve distinctness and durability.

But the self consciousness of community is expansive and ecologically inclusive.

And divine love/agaph is the integrating truth of community.

Those who live in community cooperate with one another spontaneously

            and share a common practice or, we might say in the Church, a rule of life.

If we were to look at a rule of life for us here,

            we would find it on pages 304 and 5 in the BCP, the Baptismal Covenant. 

Today in organization mode we meet and spend some time

            focused on what marks and identifies ourselves exclusively.

We hear reports about our specific activities,

            we view our financial status, we elect organizational leaders.

But we are also gathered in community mode,

            and we break bread

            and share in the sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood,

Christ’s Body in whom we live and move and have our being,

and Christ’s Blood – the life blood of all living beings.

The Church is a strange and fascinating hybrid of organization and community.

The organizational aspect focuses on a defined membership and leadership,

            and self concern about survival, growth, and success – variously defined.

But the Church as faith community is governed by

                        the given condition of relationship lived by all beings.

So even in our organizational mode today,

            please note the community aspect very consciously and intentionally                                     kept in awareness.

The vestry with new members will go off this next weekend

            for a time of community building and finding their legs as a team.

And as a member of the staff, I will state right out

            that we work in cooperation with each other as a team,

            and we have times of sharing in relationship in community,

and I particularly appreciate Hunt’s role of servant leadership in all this.

So where are we now with these words of Jesus to follow him?

Or we might say,

            where are we in responding to the implicit call that comes with baptism?

We imply in the baptismal covenant that we also are called,

                                    along with Peter and Andrew, James and John,

            called into a new way of living, into a rule of life actually,

                        a rule of life that includes

• 1.    to continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers
• 2.    to persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord
• 3.    to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ
• 4.    to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself
• 5.    to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being

all of which has everything to do with community,

            and only secondarily with organization/the institutional Church

                        not for its own sake

                        but as it is meant to support the agaph community of faith.

The baptismal covenant, our rule of life,

            is an elaboration of that basic call to follow Jesus

                        articulated within the institutional Church

                                    afloat within this specific time and place and culture.

That can be a guidepost, a lamp, a finger pointing in the direction to go,

            but it also can present a danger of domesticating and limiting

                        the implications of the call.

How far does that call go?  As far as Peter, Andrew, James and John?

Only you can answer that.

Most people live at the bottom of the mountain.

Some live in the foothills.

Some pitch their tents higher up.

Rare are those who climb to the top.

But we have Jesus, at the top, throwing a rope down, the rope of the Holy Spirit,

            and pulling up anyone who grabs hold,

revealing to us the expansive vista of salvation,

            to which we then are to bear witness.

Jesus says, “Follow me.”

How far up the mountain will we go?