Blessed to Bless

John the Baptist and St. Nicholas

John the Baptist and St. Nicholas (on the Feast of Nicholas of Myra). 

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From Mark 1:1-8.  A sermon given on the 2nd Sunday of Advent at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Oklahoma City.

I wish it were possible to start sermons with a Major Motion Picture rating.  Let me try it this way: (Play the 20th-century fox opening)

The following has been rated PG-13 by the Sermon Rating Association, some material may ruin Christmas for children under the age of 13 and might even ruin it for some over the age of 13.

You see, today is the Lesser Feast of St. Nicholas, December 6th, and it so happens to fall on the Principle Feast day of Sunday, which is always Jesus’ feast day.  But Jesus likes it when the feast of a lesser saint falls on his feast day.  He is generous that way.

Nichols was a 4th-century pastor for a group of believers in the southwest region of what is modern-day Turkey.  So he, like a parade of pastors over the centuries, built relationships with everyday folks and together they strained at the mysteries of God’s work in their life, together tried to answer the questions of suffering, evil, and together, built little pockets of healing and redemption.  That is the gritty work of Gospel that all of us involve ourselves in no matter what side of the equation you find yourself on.   We’re not all pastors of churches, and yet, we are all pastoral.  We’re all curating the communities in our lives and working to keep them healthy and life-giving.  

Nicholas, as you might well imagine, accrued a lot of “mythos” to his story.  Myth is one of those tricky words.  Language is a living thing, and words have histories, and myth certainly does.  Originally, it didn’t mean a story that is false.  It has come to mean that, for certain, but I wish we could re-claim the word because it would be very useful.  A myth is a story that conveys our values.  It’s a carrier for the things we care about.  

Did the childhood George Washington really chop down a cherry tree?  Maybe, but when his father asked him if he did you can sure bet he told the truth, or so it goes in our imagination. It’s true in a different way.

And so goes with Nicholas.

That is where the PG-13 part comes in.  There are some really cool stories associated with Nicholas, and I’m not even talking about the north pole stuff.  I’m talking 4th century Pastor Nick.  These are stories that most certainly were not true, at least in the chopping down the cherry tree sense of true.  And I can’t even share them here, because many of them are truly dark and a little bit gory. Are your kids paying attention yet?  Earmuffs.

Which as an aside, I will tell you that while I was convalescing from COVID-19 (and thank you to everyone for your prayers and notes) but it took me only three clicks on my laptop to start watching the new Mel Gibson Santa Clause movie, called “Fat Man.” In many respects, that film, which was rated R, captures the “atmosphere” of the mythological 4th century, St. Nicholas.  And the film isn’t entirely a joke.  It has poignant moments.  Take my recommendation with a grain of salt.

For those of you who watch Rachel Maddow, you know that she is the champion of the “hard pivot.” I want to do one of those right now. Ready?  Okay.

Jews don’t formally believe in reincarnation.  Formally. Christianity, which emerged from Judaism doesn’t either.  Which begs the question in the mind of my listener’s right now (that’s all of you) as to what YOU think about it.  But even though those religious systems don’t have a straight-ahead understanding of it, we do flirt with ideas of eternity, the material realm, the spiritual realm, and the way those two worlds overlap.  

For instance, for years I was sort of grouchy that people kept saying someone “passed on” instead of “died.”  I thought we were all choosing our words so as to not fully accept the reality of what had happened.  But I’ve changed my mind on that, I think part of why we say it that way is because instinctually we know there is more to existence than what we can measure.

The people who heard John the baptizer thought he was the prophet Elijah, who lived 800 years earlier.  You see, even though Jews don’t believe in reincarnation, they had developed an idea of, let’s call it, the re-incorporation of a person.  I can’t even say “soul” here because that is a greek conception of being human.  The ancient Jewish tradition has a more holistic view, body and spirit are integrated and irrevocably connected.  When someone dies, the whole person dies, or sleeps in Sheol, the ground.  They return to the ground.  From dust you came, and to dust you shall return.  And I’m telling you, if you go home today and google: Do Jews believe in heaven? You’ll see that there isn’t one understanding, but many.

But somewhere in their “thought history”, they wondered if some of the people who died, who fell asleep in the ground, might just as easily be re-awoken, and as I like to say, be put back in the game.  In Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah, the idea is called Gilgul.  The root of that word being “cycle” or “wheel” and captures the idea of a person being recycled, as needed. 

In fact, as you read the Hebrew Bible you will periodically hear references to Gilgal.  In context, it sounds like a city or a village.  But Biblical archaeologists can’t determine that to be the case.  What they think Gilgal may in fact be is some kind of stone circle, like you may have seen in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.  

All you fans of the Outlander Books need to calm down, you know what I’m talking about.  Was Gilgal a thin-place between the material world and the divine world, where the two touch, each to the other?

You hear this idea in an exchange Jesus has with his disciples, he is checking in with them and asks, “Who do people say that I am?”  And they tell him. “Some say, Elijah, others say John the Baptist raised from the dead.”  And people had wondered the same thing about John the baptist.  

Both he and Jesus shared a quality of the prophet Elijah: a brash honesty, an aggressiveness, a willingness to confront people with the ways they had abandoned what is good, and just, and reasonable.  

Talking that way takes courage.  And because so few people demonstrate that kind of assertiveness, a rare commodity in the pantheon of humanity, maybe when we see it there is a part of us that thinks it’s a gilgul...of Elijah.

So what’s the take-away? Well, maybe this.  If Advent is a time to prepare for the coming of Jesus into your life, the Jesus that is assertive, who brings the kind of love that both comforts and disturbs, an Elijah like love, then maybe one way we can get ready for him is to identify those people in our lives who are more honest and assertive with us, the ones who tell us things we don’t want to hear, and let them work on us a little bit.  A sign of a healthy spiritual life is seeking out the hard truth.  At least maybe it is during Advent.  I’m sure of it.

And St. Nicholas?  Does he exist?  Is he real?  You bet he is.  Gilgul; reawoken, extracted from the other side of the veil, and put back into play.  

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

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Fire and Water

A sermon given at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral on the Presentation of our Lord Jesus in the Temple.

FireandwaterTSY

 

Assertion and Subversion

A sermon given on the 2nd Sunday of Christmastide at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, by Fr. Tim Sean Youmans.

Assertion-subversion

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, to get through this thing called life. Electric word life, it means forever, and that's a mighty long time, but I'm here to tell you...There's something else...the afterworld. A world of never ending happiness, you can always see the sun, day or night. So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills, you know the one, Dr. Everything'll Be alright, instead of asking him how much of your time is left ask him how much of your mind, Cause in this life things are much harder than in the afterworld in this life, you're on your own.

I’m “aging” the room when I ask,”Who knows what I’m quoting here? That’s right, the introduction to Prince’s song “Let’s Go Crazy.”

Prince who died back in 2016, may light perpetual shine upon him. He was an elusive fellow, peculiar, hard to define, an enigma wrapped in a mystery. And he was spiritual. Raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, he was known to do that very thing-witness-to his fellow celebrities.

Back in the 90s Prince did something esoteric. He announced that he would no longer be known as Prince, but instead only be known by a symbol he had created. It was a protest against his record company who would not give him creative control of his music and he felt like “Prince” had become someone else, someone out his control. And so he became “the artist formerly known as Prince,” did not want to be limited by other definitions of him.

Often when others name us, it is their way of controlling us. Beware people who are too quick to give nicknames.
_______________________________

The voice in the Burning Bush told Moses to go back to Egypt and rescue his people.

Moses says, “Suppose my people ask who it is that sent me? Who should I tell them sent me?”

And God’s response is esoteric. In the Hebrew, it is four consonants, Yod, Hey, Waw, Hey, translated by sound into English as YHWH. But this was a word that was not a word in use. But it was close to a word, an approximation of the verb “to be.” And so it gets translated as “I am that I am.” It's intended meaning was not clear, because it did not have a familiar tense. And as peculiar as it is, it’s intended meaning was likely the idea or reality of “existence.” Moses asks God who he is and he says “existence.”

What happened over time is that the name of God (“Who should I say sent me?”), permanently became an unknowable, unspeakable, esoteric. Conservative Jews don’t ever refer to God by that name, or by any name, but rather by simply saying, Elohim Hashem, or god of the name, or an even longer version “he whose name may not be uttered.”

Does that make anyone here think of anything? Lord Voldemort, from the Harry Potter stories, yes?

So, what happens over time in that culture is that God, or “that which name may not be uttered” garners and collects nick-names. God was given descriptive names based on how they perceive God acting and behaving among them.

El Shaddai (God almighty, God is enough, or God of the dark mountain)
Jehovah-Raah (The Lord My Shepherd)
Jehovah Rapha (The Lord That Heals)
Jehovah Makeh (The Lord Who Strikes You)
Jehovah Shammah (The Lord Is There)
Jehovah Tsidkenu (The Lord Our Righteousness)
Jehovah Shalom (The Lord Is Peace)
Jehovah Uzi (My Strength)

So “that which name may not be uttered” is known to us, but known only as though seen through a veil. Our knowledge of God is limited and elusive. St. Augustine, who wrote prolifically about God, said it this way. “We can say nothing about God, but we must say something.”

With this in mind, I want you to begin to hear, as we read scripture together at church in the coming year, how often there is a reference to “the name” of God. Scripture asks us to honor the name, revere the name. How can we honor something that we do not know fully what it is, how can we worship a mystery?

This isn’t an unusual question in reading the Scriptures. There is a pattern in the Jewish tradition of interpretation, or Midrash, as it is known, of holding a variety of ideas about God together, even when they seem to conflict.

Jewish stories almost always are asking you to consider “on the one hand this” “on the other hand that.” A session of Midrash takes a story or a precept and literally write it in the middle of a blank piece of paper and then in the margins write the various ways the story could be understood depending on context.

John Dominic Crossan calls this pattern in scripture a rhythm of assertion-and-subversion. He says that “a vision of the radicality of God is put forth,” he says “and then later, we see that vision domesticated and integrated into the normalcy of civilization.” He calls it a pattern of

yes and no
declaration and invalidation
pronouncement and annulment
assertion and subversion. God is playing cat and mouse with us.

But then God became flesh. On the 8th day Joseph and Mary have the baby circumcised, he becomes a child of the Covenant. This day was celebrated on the 8th day of Christmas, which was this past Thursday. The Angel told both Mary and Joseph, “Call him Yeshua,” which means salvation.

Into this world God comes, this broken, fragile world. And God comes this time, finally with a proper name. Jesus comes to save. Saving comes into our lives, to bring healing, to repair what is broken, to bring order to our disorder. And I must say that I've always been confounded that in the larger Christian community this notion of salvation has primarily been understood as being saved after this life into the next. I have no doubt that is part of God's larger economy, but his saving means to rescue us now, in this life; in our marriages and in our relationships, our work, the anger, the frustration, the brokenness. It is there that Jesus brings his energy, his wisdom and redemptive rescuing presence. Jesus saves us now as much as after.

I don’t know what kind of year this has been for you, and to what degree you have seen the work of God in your midst; on-the-one-hand-this, on-the-other-hand-that, assertion and subversion. But God is among us, saving us.

And so with that in mind, I close this sermon with a poem by Mary Sarton called “New Year Poem.”

Let us step outside for a moment As the sun breaks through clouds
And shines on wet new-fallen snow. And breathe the new air.

So much has died that had to die this year. We are dying away from things.
It is a necessity—we have to do it
Or we shall be buried under the magazines,
The too many clothes, the too much food. We have dragged it all around
Like dung beetles Who drag piles of dung
Behind them on which to feed,
In which to lay their eggs.

Let us step outside for a moment Among ocean, clouds, a white field,
Islands floating in the distance.
They have always been there. But we have not been there.

We are going to drive slowly
And see the small poor farms,
The lovely shapes of leafless trees
Their shadows blue on the snow.
We are going to learn the sharp edge
Of perception after a day’s fast.
There is nothing to fear
about this revolution…
Though it will change our minds.

Aggression, violence, machismo
Are fading from us
Like old photographs
Faintly ridiculous
(Did a man actually step like a goose
To instill fear?
Does a boy have to kill
To become a man?)

Already there are signs.
Young people plant gardens.
Fathers change their babies’ diapers
And are learning to cook.
Let us step outside for a moment.
It is all there
Only we have been slow to arrive
At a way of seeing it.
Unless the gentle inherit the earth
There will be no earth.

Crossan, John Dominic, How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis Through Revelation, Harper Collins, New York, NY 2015.“New Year Poem” by May Sarton from Collected Poems. © Norton, 1993.

Christmas Eve Sermon

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

As often happens, like clockwork, one of you will approach me and announce two things. One, you recently have attempted to read through the Bible, cover the cover. And two, when you got to the genealogies, you tapped out. Typically, you tell me this because you want sympathy, or maybe advice about how to muscle through those obstacles to reading.

Here is the good news. There really aren’t that many genealogies in the Bible, compared to the entire collection of stories. The bad news is that there are a few of them right in the beginning. And jumping ahead to the New Testament won’t save you the trouble either because...

The Gospel of Matthew starts with one. I am not going to read it to you (those of you who know me well might worry that I would do that very thing). What is notable and not surprising about Matthew’s genealogy, like the others in the scriptures, is that it is made up almost entirely of men.

40 men to be exact, which is very Biblical, by the way. It tracks the connection of Jesus all the way back to Abraham; Abraham to David, David to Joseph, bringing us to the infant Jesus. In Judaism, past and present are nearly indistinguishable. Past is prologue to the now.

But in the midst of all those men, are five women, five mothers. And who these women were speaks to what God was and is up to when he entered the world in human form, when God put on flesh.

Tamar: cast aside by her family and their version of a welfare system, she must manipulate her father-in-law to force him to take care of her.
Rahab: and I’ll say this delicately—a woman of the night, and a foreigner, who betrays her people to save her family, and in doing so, has a life changing encounter with one and only maker God.
Ruth: also a foreigner and an outsider who must beg for food and until she manages to marry into security.
Bathsheba: a woman who is exploited by King David, a man abusing his power, the result being an adulterous and eventually murderous affair.
And finally the mother we honor tonight. Mary: a young innocent woman, who according the song she proclaimed after learning about her role, demonstrated a fierce sense of human rights and a yearning for justice, and was opened to scorn when she is with child by the Spirit of God.

• Those cast aside
• those who claw their way to subsistence
• outsiders who depend on the kindness of others for survival
• And finally, God born into the world by a woman who recognized the injustice of all of it.

Matthew’s Gospel says that the baby is to be named Jesus, Yeshua, which means salvation, because he will be born to save us from our sins. And that list of very real human beings that make up the lineage of his birth points to the reality.

Jesus did not come into the world to reward the righteous, but to embrace the broken.
Jesus did not come to celebrate strength, but to heal the wounded and support the weak.

Less than a mile from Bethlehem, sitting atop the tallest hill, was the massive palace of the Jewish puppet King Herod the Great. Called the Herodium, it had 200 polished marble steps leading to a series of towers and arches. It contained a swimming pool twice as large as an Olympic pool. It would have been clearly in sight that night, blazing away with its torches and candles.

Why wasn’t Jesus born there? Was it a mistake for the Messiah to be born to such humble surroundings? Shouldn’t there have been a palace instead of a barn? Shouldn’t there have been a gold delicate cradle instead of a feeding trough? Shouldn’t there have been the best doctors present instead of just Mary and Joseph and whatever help that might muster? Did God know what He was doing?

“The question is not what God COULD do but what God CHOSE to do. God’s choice was that though Christ was rich, yet for our sake he became poor. So quietly, without fanfare of trumpets, God quietly slipped into this world as the son of a poor working-class family.

What this means for all of us is that in order to come to God, in order to walk with him and grow into a truly spiritual life, it does NOT mean that you must be good, or perfect, or accomplished. All that is required is that you recognize your need for God. That is all that is required for him to save you.

The way that God chose to enter the world is evidence that God is on our side. God is for you. All that is required is to acknowledge your desperate need, and then let him love you.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

Holy Land Tour 2020

For a link to the full brochure and tour details, follow this link:

https://timsean.typepad.com/Holy_Land_Casady.pdf

I Am the Bread

A sermon given by F. Tim Sean Youmans at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Oklahoma City, from Exodus 16 and John 6.

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I Am the Bread.

A number of you may be readers of Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” books, a series of eight novels about a female physician who is transported back in time, through an ancient Celtic stone circle to 18th century Scotland smack-dab in the throws of the Jacobite rebellion. The novels are part historical fiction, with a little sci-fi element for the time travel, and a not-so-small dose of romance. I jokingly refer to them as “50 Shades of Tartan.” So if you are interested in reading them, keep that in mind.

One of the things I love about Gabaldon’s writing is the manner in which she weaves together a scientific, rational sensibility with the spiritual and mystical parts of the human experience. Before she wrote the first novel she was a scientist, a Ph.D. who taught research methodology. She is also Roman Catholic. This is very apparent in her writing. It is in great part of why I enjoy reading her books.

In book five of her series, "The Fiery Cross;" The heroine of the story, Claire Fraser, is walking through the mountains, surveying a tract of land that she and her Scottish husband will soon be settling. She writes:

A raven flew silently past, slow and heavy, its feathers burdened by the rain. Ravens were birds of omen; I wondered whether this one meant us good or ill. Rare for any bird to fly in such weather--that must mean it was a special omen. I knocked the heel of my hand against my head, trying to knock the superstition out of it. Live with Highlanders long enough, and soon every rock and tree means something!"
___________________

“I am the bread of life.”

To say that Jesus is bread is absurd. But to say that he is not bread, is a different kind of sadness all-together.

Those people in ear-shot of Jesus were furious when he said this. What they were asking for was not unreasonable. Two things:

What do we have to do in order to perform the works of God?
What sign are you going to give us so that we may believe?

They knew Jesus was unique. Unlike other teachers, he spoke with such authority. There were the healings, and now this occurrence with the multiplication of bread and fish for thousands of people. Jesus, they thought, could easily be this promised king who would bring health and well-being back to their culture, they just needed him to confirm it.

Give us sign.

Let’s not be too hard on these folks of the unbelieving generation, shall we. Their cynicism about false Messiah’s and unrealized hope was as real as any of our cynicisms might be. It’s the reason why, in part, Jesus gave them signs. On more than one occasion he said that it was a perverse and wicked generation that asks for a sign. He may have been being more descriptive than evaluative, because more often than not he would then turn around and give them a sign.

In this instance it was something to eat. As far as signs go, giving me something to eat is probably a good place to start.
________________________________-

Most of us love food. Recently there have been a proliferation of food shows that people like to watch. Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. And some, like Top Chef and Chopped, are quintessentially American in that they combine our love of food with competition and winning.

One of my favorite conversations starters has always been to ask about someone’s ideal meal. It goes something like this: If you were leaving on a two year stint as a aide worker or in the peace corp to a region with food scarcity, what would you eat the day before you left?

There are a few of you out there who could care less about food, that it is in many ways just a nuisance, but one must eat. Frankly, I don’t understand you people. To me, food is an intersection between body and spirit, the temporal and the ethereal. And chefs are artists who and their medium is the interplay between sweet, sour, savory and salty, between smooth and crunchy. In the past few years somebody started adding sea-salt to cookies and desserts.

Why did it takes us so long to figure that out?

Not too long ago, while visiting downtown Chicago, I saw an art display, not of paintings or sculptures, but of the late Chef Charlie Trotter’s signature dishes. Photographs of the dish are on display, with the little card in the lower corner explaining what it is you are seeing.

The Hebrew tribes, coming out of Israel, were frightened. They had been living in oppression, but even-so, they had a regular source of food and water. After the first few days of their escape they began to run out of food. They turned to Moses and acrimoniously pleaded with him, “Did you bring us out into the desert to die!? At least as slaves we had food and water.”

Throughout that same story God is giving various water wells and places names like “bitter and quarrelsome” because the people, in the midst of very legitimate anxiety, begin to fight with each other, to complain, to get suspicious of one another. When we get hungry for long periods of time, we get scared, and fear can lead to all kinds of toxic thinking. This is true both individually and collectively.

Food anxiety. It means a great many different things in America culture. Some of our neighbors are anxious about getting enough food, and only secondarily anxious about getting the right kinds of food. Some of us, myself included, have anxiety about how NOT to eat too much food, girding ourselves up after a tiring day at work, for that drive home through a gauntlet of cheap, harmful fast food, clamoring at me that if I will eat them, then I will feel loved and safe. They tell me that food will save me.

Something dramatic happens to the human psyche when we live with scarcity, as does living in abundance. Both have great capacity to hurt us.

God tells Moses that he will provide for them, water, meat and bread. Bread in the morning and Quail at twilight. When they woke up, as the shiny dew evaporated, a white fluffy substance remained. The Israelites turned to each other and they asked in Hebrew, “Ma-Na?” What it is it? And that is what they named it. “What is it.” Man-na.

Everything in God’s creation is always more than what it is, always more than just one thing. Metaphor and poetry surround you; in joy, sorrow, fear, in nature, in family (both functional and dysfunctional), in marriage, in divorce. The truths embedded in these things are not always easy or redemptive. Often they hurt us, or wake us up to a truth we could not know any other way.

When Jesus said to them, “I am the bread from heaven.” He wasn’t being oblique. Poetic language isn’t less true, it is intensely true. Jesus is the source of God’s provision. His teaching and his presence are what sustains you and heal you.

I don’t say it every time, but when you come to receive the bread and the wine, there may have been an occasion when you might hear me mutter, under my breath, an almost indecipherable question, “Manna?” “What is it?” It is the bread from heaven, it is Jesus, God among you and within you, loving and rescuing you, and giving you strength to do the same.

 

Leadership Matters

A sermon given by Fr. Tim Sean Youmans at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral on January 22, 2017, based on the the texts of 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 and Matthew 4:12-23.  

Listen:  Leadership Matters

My friend Katie is really good at manipulation. I was her supervisor for a season at St. Crispin’s Summer Camp, and she would come to me with ideas about the Staff. What she would do is come up with a reason for this thing that was completely unrelated to the real reason she wanted it. I noticed it, and noticed that it happened more than once, and so I finally took a risk and asked her about it.

I said, “You’re oblique. Do you know that?”

“What’s oblique?” she asked me?

“When you want something you don’t ask directly, you come in at an angle looking for ways that the thing you want might benefit someone else, which increases the likelihood that it will happen, because it SEEMS selfless, so you lead with that.

She turned three shades of red AND, because she trusted me, admitted, almost as though confessing to her priest, that THAT, is exactly what she does.

Now I was far from upset with her. In fact, Katie, in some sense, was demonstrating the instincts for good leadership. And I would argue that she was, maybe unwittingly, imitating Christ. At least in this sense....
...that trying to shape our desires in such a way as they might not benefit only ourselves, but also those around us, seems to be part of Jesus’ sanctifying grace within us. Or maybe it’s a starting place.

Manipulation is a skill set.

There are multiple occasions in the scriptures, when there is call for unity. We hear it today in Paul’s letter to the Christians in Corinth. He says, “I appeal to you, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.

Hunh. How do you DO THAT?

St. Ignatius, who was one of the first generation pastors of in the 2nd century of the church in the city of Antioch, he echoes this in his letter to the Ephesians:

It is therefore befitting that you should in every way glorify Jesus Christ, who hath glorified you, that by a unanimous obedience “you may be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment, and may all speak the same thing concerning the same thing, (and then listen to this) and that, being subject to the bishop and the priests, you may in all respects be sanctified.

“Being subject to the bishops and the priests.” How do you like them apples?

Let’s unpack that (Let’s break that down). The practice of unity works under certain conditions. One of those conditions is that you gloss over disagreements. And there is some wisdom in holding your tongue. But to always do so is to create a thin, sentimental form of unity that will inevitably collapse under the actual living of life. It’s better to learn to speak the truth and stay in the relationship, for unity to have some resilience.

Today we heard about Jesus choosing his first disciples, Andrew and Simon, James and John, but I want to draw you attention two others in that set of twelve.

Jesus chose Matthew, who was a Jewish man who collected taxes for the Roman occupiers. Make no mistake. Matthew was a sell-out in the eyes of his countrymen. And he financially benefitted from selling out.

At the same time, Jesus chose another man named Simon (there were actually two Simons among Jesus disciple) who is referred to as Simon the Zealot, or sometimes called Simon the Canaanite. Now both of those descriptions were marks against him. Canaanites were considered at best, as sub-standard, gypsy Jews, if you will. And a Zealot? Well they were the insurgents, the revolutionaries, who wanted to overthrow the Roman government by whatever means necessary.

Matthew the tax collector, Simon the Canaanite Zealot. I wonder how those two guys got along.

So, what in the world was Jesus doing?

Let me be clear here. The Gospel appointed for today is in part about Jesus choosing future leaders, leaders he would send out into the world to shape the community that would come to be known as the body of Christ. And then our St. Paul many decades later is writing to subsequent leaders within that body, leaders who had been shaping the atmosphere, the personality of those folks. We read their names; Apollos, Paul, Cephas. All of them, no doubt, were big personalities, with great passions for Jesus. People were drawn to them, so much so that the body began to divide and split into factions. Leadership matters.

There are the echos of Abraham Lincoln’s “Team of Rivals” running in the background of my mind. Lincoln is known to have recruited his political adversaries to serve on his cabinet, the ones he respected and new to be great minds and great managers. Doris Kerns Goodwin writes about it in her book of the same name. Which has some well deserved irony in it. Lincoln was a president who governed a deeply divided nation.

At the 1858 Illinois Republican State Convention, Lincoln was selected to be the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, and it was then he gave his “house divided” speech:

We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, NOT ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."

I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.

Lincoln knew, and I’m quite sure Jesus knew, and suspect that Paul knew, that being of one mind is mostly an abstract thing. But in our divisions, it is necessary for us to identify stanchions of unity. When Jesus put together a ragamuffin, rag-tag group of adversarial squabblers, what this the project he was setting into motion?

So what do we do? We take on the project of Jesus. And maybe, like my camp counselor Katie, the starting place is to look for overlap, places where the thing you want can be shaped and molded, manipulated, if you like, to be the thing other people want. In Paul’s letter to the Roman church he said it this way:

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mind Christ Jesus.

Having the same mind as Christ? Lofty words, in practice a great mystery. St. Ignatius, which you hear Mthr. Susan and many others discuss here at the Cathedral, was a thinker way ahead of his time. In one of his exercises he invites you to meditate and try to think the way Jesus would as it intersects the events and relationships in your life. How would Jesus perceive and act. It is a awful exercise. And by that I mean awe-full.

Your starting place might be clandestinely selfish, but by the grace and mystery of God, it may transform into something selfless. +++

That Which Name May Not Be Uttered

A sermon given by Fr. Tim Sean Youmans on the Feast of the Holy Name, at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral Oklahoma City. Numbers 6:22-27, Galatians 4:4-7, Luke 2:15-21 and Psalm 8.

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Someone new comes to St. Paul’s, you have seen them here a few times, they have their new burgundy extra large coffee mug. You have every intention of introducing yourself and so finally comes the chance.

“Hello, my name is . . .

And then comes an awkward hiccup in the conversation. He is supposed to then tell you his name. But he doesn't, and so finally you ask, “So, tell me your name?”

And he says to you, “I don’t have a name.”

That’s it. You wait a few beats for the explanation, but it doesn’t come.

But, surprisingly to you and to everybody else at church, no-name is a big hit. People like this guy. He is friendly as not to be creepy, funny, pleasant to talk to. And as it turns out, incredibly dependable. He volunteers at the Guild of St. George, is an after-school mentor for New Hope. And he becomes an intricate part of St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral.

Far-fetched I know, but even so. What would we do for naming him?

Inevitably, this fellow would receive a nick-name, or perhaps a whole cadre of them. Scott Raab and the folks in the choir would start calling him Sine Nomine, the latin for “no name.” And Dean Lindstrum starts calling him “go-to-guy” because he always shows up to volunteer.

Prince died this year. The musician. Do you all know who Prince is?

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, to get through this thing called life. Electric word life, it means forever, and that's a mighty long time, but I'm here to tell you...There's something else...the afterworld. A world of never ending happiness, you can always see the sun, day or night. So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills, you know the one, Dr. Everything'll Be alright, instead of asking him how much of your time is left ask him how much of your mind, Cause in this life things are much harder than in the afterworld in this life, you're on your own.

Prince did something like this back in the 90s. He announced that he would no longer be known as Prince, but instead only be known by a symbol he had created. It was a protest against his record company who would not give him creative control of his music and he felt like Prince was someone else, someone out his control, owned by someone else. Prince, or “the artist formerly known as Prince,” did not want to be limited by other’s definitions of him. Often when others name us, it is their way of controlling us. Beware people who are too quick to give nicknames.
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The voice in the Burning Bush tells Moses to go back to Egypt and rescue his people.

Moses says, “Suppose my people ask who it is that sent me? Who should I tell them sent me?”

And God’s response is elusive. In the Hebrew, it is four consonants, Yod, Hey, Waw, Hey, translated by sound into english as YHWH. But this was word that was not a word in use. But it was close to a word, an approximation of the verb “to be.” And so it gets translated as “I am that I am.” It's intended meaning was not clear, because it did not have a familiar tense. And as peculiar as it is, it’s intended meaning was likely “existence.” Moses asks God who he is and he says “existence.”

What happened over time is that the name of God (“Who should I say sent me?”), permanently became an unknowable, unspeakable thing. Conservative Jews don’t ever refer to God by that name, or by any name, but rather by simply saying, Elohim Hashem, or god of the name, or an even longer version “that which name may not be uttered.”

Does that make anyone here think of anything? Lord Voldemort, from the Harry Potter stories, yes?

So, what happens over time in that culture is that God, or “that which name may not be uttered” garners and collects nick-names. God was given descriptive names based on how they perceive God acting and behaving among them.

El Shaddai (God almighty, God is enough, or God of the dark mountain)
Jehovah-Raah (The Lord My Shepherd)
Jehovah Rapha (The Lord That Heals)
Jehovah Makeh (The Lord Who Strikes You)
Jehovah Shammah (The Lord Is There)
Jehovah Tsidkenu (The Lord Our Righteousness)
Mekoddishkem (The Lord Who Sanctifies You)
El Olam (The Everlasting God)
Qanna (Jealous)
Jehovah Jireh (The Lord Will Provide)
Jehovah Shalom (The Lord Is Peace)
Jehovah Uzi (My Strength)

So “that which name may not be uttered” is known to us, but known only as though seen through a veil. Our knowledge of God is limited and elusive. St. Augustine, who wrote prolifically about God, said it this way. “We can say nothing about God, but we must say something.”

With this in mind I want you to begin to hear, as we read scripture together at church in the coming year, how often there is reference to “the name” of God. Scripture asks us to honor the name, revere the name. How can we honor something that we do not know fully what it is, how can we worship a mystery?

This isn’t an unusual question in reading the Scriptures. There is a pattern in the Jewish tradition of interpretation, or Midrash, as it is known, of holding a variety of ideas about God together, even when they seem to conflict.

Jewish stories almost are asking you to consider “on the one hand this” “on the other hand that.” A session of Midrash would take a story or a precept and literally write it in the middle of blank piece of paper and then in the margins write the various ways the story could be understood depending on context.

John Dominic Crossan calls this pattern in scripture a rhythm of assertion-and-subversion. He says that “a vision of the radicality of God is put forth,” he says “and then later, we see that vision domesticated and integrated into the normalcy of civilization.” He calls it a pattern of

yes and no
declaration and invalidation
pronouncement and annulment
assertion and subversion.

God is playing cat and mouse with us.

But then God became flesh. On the 8th day Joseph and Mary have him circumcised, he becomes a child of the Covenant. The Angel told Joseph, you will call him Yeshua, which means salvation. It is into this world that God comes, this broken, fragile world. And God comes this time, finally with a proper name. Jesus comes to save. Saving comes into our lives, to bring healing, to repair what is broken, to bring order to our disorder. And I must say that I've always been confounded that in the larger Christian community this notion of salvation has primarily been understood as being saved after this life into the next. I have no doubt that is part of God's larger economy, but his saving means to rescue us now, in this life; in our marriages and in our relationships, our work, the anger the frustration, the brokenness.  It is there that Jesus brings his energy, his wisdom and redemptive rescuing presence. Jesus saves us now as much as after.

This has been a tough year for many of you, one in which you find it difficult to see the slow work of God in your midst; on the one hand this, one the other hand that. But God is among us, saving. And so with that in mind, I close this sermon with a poem by Mary Sarton called “New Year Poem.”

Let us step outside for a moment
As the sun breaks through clouds
And shines on wet new fallen snow,
And breathe the new air.

So much has died that had to die this year.
We are dying away from things.
It is a necessity—we have to do it
Or we shall be buried under the magazines,
The too many clothes, the too much food.
We have dragged it all around
Like dung beetles
Who drag piles of dung
Behind them on which to feed,
In which to lay their eggs.

Let us step outside for a moment
Among ocean, clouds, a white field,
Islands floating in the distance.
They have always been there.
But we have not been there.

We are going to drive slowly
And see the small poor farms,
The lovely shapes of leafless trees
Their shadows blue on the snow.
We are going to learn the sharp edge
Of perception after a day’s fast.
There is nothing to fear
about this revolution…
Though it will change our minds.

Aggression, violence, machismo
Are fading from us
Like old photographs
Faintly ridiculous
(Did a man actually step like a goose
To instill fear?
Does a boy have to kill
To become a man?)

Already there are signs.
Young people plant gardens.
Fathers change their babies’ diapers
And are learning to cook.
Let us step outside for a moment.
It is all there
Only we have been slow to arrive
At a way of seeing it.
Unless the gentle inherit the earth
There will be no earth.

Crossan, John Dominic, How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis Through Revelation, Harper Collins, New York, NY 2015.

“New Year Poem” by May Sarton from Collected Poems. © Norton, 1993.

Into the Weary

A sermon given by Fr. Tim Sean Youmans on the 4th Sunday of Advent at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, Oklahoma City, OK. Isaiah 7:10-16, Romans 1:1-7, Matthew 1:18-25, Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18

Intotheweary

I needed a sign.

It was the summer before my senior year of high school in Cheyenne, WY, and for the previous three years I had been embroiled in painful conflict with my step-father. A family therapist we had sought out for help suggested it might be a good idea to give everyone a break. I spent spent the summer with my grandparents in Bartlesville, OK.

It was a whirlwind summer. To make friends, I attended my Grandparents church, First Baptist Bartlesville, which had a youth group of over 100 kids. I’d never seen anything like that, having grown up in a small American Baptist Church in Wyoming. I met a girl named Gigi, and she invited me to Falls Creek (which if you do not know is a Southern Baptist encampment that has over 5,000 kids in attendance every week. For some perspective, St. Crispin’s, our camp, has around 60 kids kids a week).

Well, I fell in love with Gigi, as much as an 18 year old kid can fall in love, but I also fell in love with Jesus, as much as an 18 year kid old can fall in love with Jesus. Gigi and Jesus. At the end of the summer I was sure of one thing; I did not want to go back to Wyoming. And so, I asked if I could spend my senior year in Oklahoma.

So I made my case to my mother. And to my surprise she said, “It’s up to you. It’s your decision.”

I desperately wanted to go. I was weary, and living at home with my step-father was exhausting. To me, a new beginning made sense. But, even at 18, I was intuitive enough to see that it was going to break my mother’s heart.

She had been through a divorce, the only one of her six siblings whose marriage had failed, and she had married a man that brought conflict into our house. I knew she did want to fail as a parent, also. I sensed it then, but as a parent, I know it now.

But, she said, it was my decision.

I remember it as if it were yesterday, not some 30 years ago. I laid on our back patio and looked up into the cool Wyoming August night and I prayed. “God, I want to go, but I don’t know if it is the right thing.

At that moment, a shooting star streaked across the night sky. At 18 I was egocentric enough to believe that God had hurled a meteor through the earth’s atmosphere just for me.
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Joseph wanted to do the right thing. St. Chrysostom, our 4th century golden mouth preacher, delineated his inward struggle.

“To keep Mary in his house appeared to be a transgression of God’s law, but to expose and bring her to trial would cause him to deliver her to die. He would do nothing of the sort. So Joseph determined to conduct himself now by a higher rule than the law. Now, Chrysostom writes, grace was appearing, and this event would be the first of many “Tokens of exalted citizenship.” ¹

Even in utero, the spirit of Jesus was reimagining the precepts of God.

King Ahaz in our Hebrew reading. He did NOT want a sign. In fact, the backdrop of that story has to do with Ahaz wanting to embrace the most expedient political solution to a complicated social and religious problem. And God desperately dares Ahaz to ask for a sign. Ahaz refuses, God sends one anyway. A young woman will give birth to a son, and his name will be Immanuel, God with us. But Ahaz wasn’t interested in that answer.

You must be careful in asking God for things, God may just give you something you do not want.

God gave Joseph a sign also, in the form of a dream. I’d be curious to hear from those of you who have vivid dream lives. There have been a few rare occasions when I have awoke from a dream and everything, the contents of the dream, the way my body felt, the notions I had about what I was supposed to do, they all pointed to the dream being from God. Carl Jung had language for this, he called the compensatory dream, dreams that are putting in work. What about you?

Joseph wanted to stay true to the Torah, he was a righteous man, but he also wanted to be kind to Mary. Into the midst of his weariness, her weariness, God gave him a sign. This situation, God would say in the dream, requires you to do the hard thing, which as is often the case, also the right thing.

Do you look for signs? Let me ask it this way, “What is the degree and manner of your superstition?” I have little doubt that all of you make most of your decisions with a good measure of reason and common sense. But what of the mystical? Superstition, comes from the Latin and old french, meaning to stand over, to stand outside the basics of a thing. Do you do that? And don’t mishear me, I am a Christian priest, I’m pretty superstitious. It’s what I do for a living.

Maybe it is your weariness that creates the context for God to work mystically in your life. Weariness makes you vulnerable to the fantastic.

God gets weary. Did you hear that? Weary in getting our attention. “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary human beings, that you weary my God also?

And in the Psalms,

O Lord God of hosts,
how long will you be angered
despite the prayers of your people?
You have fed them with the bread of tears;
you have given them bowls of tears to drink.

What has broken your heart this year? What has worn you out? A job that frustrates you, a family member that is sick, your own wavering health, a job that seems to take more joy than it remotely gives you, struggling to improve your performance and never quite feeling like you are achieving what you are supposed to achieve.

The child, Isaiah tells Ahaz and the House of David, His name will be Immanuel, which means God is with us. Jesus steps in your wavering confidence, your frustration with a broken life. God in fact is weary along with you. This is the dream that God implants in Isaiah’s mind, and it is the dream that he put into Joseph's mind. Mary will have a child and you will name him Yeshua, God saves. And he will be born into your weariness and walk with you.

I want to give you some homework this week, in these final cold days as we approach the Christmastide. And this is form of an Ignatian exercise, a version of the examen that occurs at the end of the day. Take a piece of paper and on one side, write something that is a struggle for you, and on the other side make an attempt to identify how God is present in that struggle. And then, as strange as this may sound, place it under your pillow as you go to sleep.

Gracious and loving God, visit us in our weariness, vulnerable to your fantastic grace. Give us sign that we too might reimagine your law, be tokens of your exalted citizenship.

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¹ Chrysostom, The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 4.4

 

Jesus the Teacher, Part I

This is part of a group at Casady School and St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in OKC who are reading through the Bible together, God's Grand Narrative.

For this entry, you are going to be reading two of Jesus' Sermons, Matthew 5-7 and Luke 6:1-49. But don't do it yet.

These are two collections of Jesus' teachings that will seem very similar. But I want you to read closely because they have some subtle differences. These two “sermons” come with a host of questions that cannot be answered definitively. Is this the same sermon remembered differently? Did Jesus teach this to different groups and tweak it each time? Regardless, I want you to look for the ways they are different. Before you read, consider a couple of things.

I asked you in the two earlier chapters, when we were considering Jesus as a healer, what he did for a living. Again, most of us have a mental picture of him as a carpenter because that is what Joseph did. No doubt he was familiar with the craft, but it is most likely that Jesus chose to study to become a Rabbi or a teacher of Jewish spirituality. And like schools for young adults today there were various levels of respected schools back then also; There were the “ivy league” type rabbinical schools that existed in Jerusalem and the larger town centers. Most likely Jesus studied with a local Rabbi in the rural synagogue near Nazareth, or in the larger nearby town Sepphoris.

The various Gospel accounts describe Jesus as a “different” kind of teacher, as one who taught with authority and not as the scribes and pharisees. As you can imagine, many of the teachings of Moses had multiple ways of understanding and applying them. What tends to happen in churches (and schools) is that people end up arguing about ideas rather than than what the ideas mean for their life. Knowledge becomes a game that you are trying to win. Jesus apparently cut through those games and got to the heart of the matter. People noticed.

We don’t have time in our class to read and discuss all of Jesus teachings, though I think in many ways that would be more what Jesus would want us to being doing, rather than the birds-eye view we’ve been taking. The parables and sermons of Jesus would be an important class all by itself. So after this brief introduction, I hope you’ll feel you have the context to focus more on Jesus teachings about God and day to day life.

Now go settle in and read these two sermons. The first is Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount. The second is shorter but has some similarities, Luke 6:1-49, the Sermon in the Valley. Then come back and finish this chapter.

The first part of the Sermon on the Mount is the best known teachings of Jesus. They are often called “the Beatitudes” because of the litany that repeats itself at the beginning of each line--blessed are (the poor in spirit, the meek, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for right-living, etc.) Each of these have the potential of generating important discussions. What does Jesus mean when he says that those who have a poor spirit are blessed? Shouldn’t we have a rich spirit?

Also in the Sermon on the Mount, do you notice that Jesus may be contradicting himself when he tells them to perform works of goodness so others can see and praise God, but then later excoriates those who practice their spirituality to be seen by others. Obviously Jesus wants us to parse out the specific internal complexity of both. It IS good to share examples of goodness, but it is also true that people can easily do those things for reasons that make them worse people and not more loving. But that is what good spiritual discussions will do, ask us to grapple with these types of questions. Jesus wants you to have those discussions.

Did you notice any differences between the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and the Sermon in the Valley (Luke 6:1-49)? The beatitude phrasing is slightly different, isn’t it? In Matthew he says the “poor in spirit” are blessed, whereas in Luke he says “the poor.” What is the difference and why? In Matthew 5 he encourages those who are struggling with their life in God, but in Luke he excoriates those who are rich, as well as those who laugh in this life. It is harsher. Why?

A couple of questions I want you to wrestle with; Some think this is the same sermon remembered or written down differently. Some would say those who recorded it altered it to fit the version of Jesus they preferred. This practice is called redaction. The Gospels are generally believed to be collections of stories that were passed around verbally and in scrolls to the various groups of followers that cropped up after the resurrection of Jesus. So you see why people could see that happening. But I want you to consider something else.

Do you remember early on in our study of Jesus the background I gave you to the different ways the Jewish culture responded to and dealt with Roman occupation? Look at them again:

Sadducees: This was the ruling class of the Jewish society. They could be called the sell-outs in that they often did anything they could to compromise with the Roman government and still hold onto their Jewish identity. Because of this, they tended to be wealthy and well connected economically.

Pharisees. The way they coped with Roman occupation was to lean heavily into their Jewish religious practice and culture, being as non-Roman as possible. So they created a complex series of rules and practices that accentuated their faith. They are often depicted as the villains of the New Testament because some of the rules were extreme (a modern example of this would be families who never let their kids watch TV, go to any movies, or listen to any music but Christian music). But Pharisees were not villains, they were sincerely trying to embrace their faith in hopes that it would encourage the coming of the Messiah.

Essenes. I call these the “hippies” or monks of the time. They disconnected from the Roman society altogether, set up tent cities, lived in caves in separated Jewish communes. The Romans generally cared less about these groups, save for the fact that they didn’t pay any taxes, but at least they weren’t being a problem. They, too, waited for the Messiah.

Zealots. These were the revolutionaries who hated the Roman occupation and wanted to overthrow them. The planned insurgent attacks on the Romans (and in some historical accounts snuck up on Sadducees and cut their throats) and attempted to raise small armed forces that would be ready to fight when the Messiah arrived.

When you read the teachings of Jesus try always to keep in mind these four different types of listeners. Recognize that if you had been alive back then you likely would have been sympathetic to one of these groups over the others. As I said when I first introduced this, it wasn’t a clear-cut sort of arrangement. You could be be a Sadducee and hate that you were such a sell-out. You could be a Essene and have doubts about living your life so separate from the struggle of society. You could be a Pharisee and think maybe you were too over-the-top with your expression of your Jewish faith. It would be like being a Republican but knowing full-well that you appreciate much of the government regulation safety-nets that it provides, you just wish it weren’t so unmanageable. And vice versa. Most of us a complicated mixtures of a variety of cultural expressions. We manage our lives from a variety of vantage points.

These two sermons seems to have different audiences, and that is partly what I like about Jesus as a teacher. He loved and was concerned about everybody; religious, secular, rich, poor, angry, cynical, sell-outs. And his message wants to penetrate to the heart of who you are in all its complexity. When people say that Jesus “saves” that doesn’t only mean you are saved from hell after this life and go to heaven, it means you are saved from your own self-destructive tendencies to make yourself the God of your own life, and all the negative and hurtful fallout from that it breeds.

Your next reading will be a sampling of some of the other of Jesus’ more well-known teachings, the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and the Sower and the Seed.