Songs, Sermons, Musings

He Had the Follow-Up Question Ready

The Good Samaritan
Luke 10. 25-37

A sermon given on July 10th, 2022, the 5th Sunday in Pentecost, at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, Oklahoma City, OK.

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    It was many years ago now that St. Paul’s was the “Christian” stop on what was known as the Youth Interfaith Tour in Oklahoma City. It had been a tradition that the Oklahoma Conferene of Churches sponsored an event where teenagers would, on a Sunday afternoon, hop on rented buses and visit three different communities of faith, each from a different religion.
   Now, to be sure, not three different Christian denominations, but three different religions. I say that because as I have taught teenagers these past 30 years, I still see them struggling with this particular nuance. Presbyterians and Baptists are not different religions, they are different “flavors,” as I call them, of the Christian tradition. But I digress.
   The Youth Interfaith Tour would make three stops on that Sunday afternoon. An example; the first stop would be a Mosque for Isalm, a second stop a Hindu Temple, and a third would be a particular “flavor” of Christianity. At each stop, the pastor, Rabbi, or Imam would give a talk, and often one of the teens from their community would be a part of that presentation. On one of those years, our Cathedral was the Christian stop on the tour, and we enlisted one of our high school students to give the presentation. Among other things, this is what he said. Are you ready?

    “One of the things I love about being an Episcopalian is that you can believe whatever you want, and it doesn’t matter.”

    I cringed. Now, I’m pretty sure I understood what our teen was attempting to convey, but he missed it.
   There are two theological concepts that I think would be helpful for you to know as you move along your journey with Jesus. The first is one that I would venture most of you are familiar with. It is the concept of orthodoxy, which practically translated means “right or correct belief.” As an Episcopalian, you can say that you believe God is best described as a giant spaghetti monster in the sky, but I assure you that would not be “orthodox.” This is an extreme example. The delineation of what is right versus wrong belief is more nuanced than that, and what our teenager was trying to say on that day is that our Christian community tends to give each other a lot of latitude in those nuances of Christian belief. Can I get an Amen?
   Every Sunday, we recite together the Nicene Creed. We’re going to do it right after my sermon (which will correct everything I get wrong in the sermon!) This creed is the result of a 4th century A.D. argument about some particular boundaries of “right belief.” The Creed was the winner of that argument. I bet if we all met in the Welcome Center after church today and had chat about what each of you thinks about the Creed we would demonstrate this “latitude of thought” our teenager was trying to articulate that Sunday afternoon.
   The second word that is just as useful and important but that is referred to less often is the word “orthopraxy.” You can guess what this means. It is right or correct practice. It’s tied to personal and communal ethics and morality. It tries to answer the question, “If we believe this about God, how then shall we live?” If we have learned about Jesus, and God, and have the right belief about them, then what are the implications for our daily lives?
   And just like orthodoxy, Episcopalians tend to give greater latitude around these issues. However, can you imagine that teenager getting up and saying “The thing I like about being an Episcopalian is that you can live however you want and it doesn’t matter?” Right?
   Jesus, Yeshua, was a master teacher. At that moment, an expert in Jewish orthodoxy and orthopraxy, asks him, “Give me the bottom line. What is the most important teaching and/or practice in our spiritual tradition? What does God really want?” The answer that Jesus’ draws from the man was not a surprise to either of them. They were these big beautiful abstractions that one could hardly argue with; love God with your entire being and love your neighbor as yourself. It was the follow-up question that the man was actually interested in, and he had it on-the-ready.  Well then, who is my neighbor?
    In response, Jesus tells a parable, rooted in practical theology, and he makes the hero of the story a heretic, someone who didn’t have his beliefs (and maybe some of his practice) lined up exactly right.
    Samaria. Samaritans. If you really want to understand what Jesus was up to, it is worth your time to do a deep dive into Samaria. For Jews who were trying to live right, to think right, to be seen as right, you had to be careful having any kind of friendships with Samaritans. They were a group of people held under great suspicion.
   The origin of this suspicion was centuries old. Centuries. There had been a period of relative political, cultural, and religious unity in ancient Israel known as the United Monarchy. It was three successive kings that, according to the scriptures, reigned each for 40 years: King Saul, forty years, King David, forty years, and finally King Solomon, forty years. You might be dubious about how neat and tidy three reigns of 40 years each were, but that’s part of the point. This was a religious history that had a certain poetic and artistic shape to it. It was underscoring 120 years of relative UNITY.
   It was toward the end of Solomon’s reign that he basically drives this united kingdom into the ditch (an entirely separate sermon) and the United Monarchy SPLITS into TWO separate kingdoms. A SEPARATE CAPITOL, different from Jerusalem, was established in what would eventually become the region of? Does anyone want to guess?

    Samaria.

    Now, part of what characterized the split was the emergence of something called FERTILITY RELIGIONS. Trust me when I tell you that I can’t share with you all that entailed (There are children in the room). I can invite you to use your imagination and to do your own research, but it was very evocative, and as we often say at school…inappropriate. A large number of Jews at that time, particularly in the northern regions, began to combine and mix fertility religious beliefs and practices with their Judaism, a practice known as syncretism. It was a mess.
   Eventually, this mess works itself out and gets tempered.  But the damage was done.  And some 700 years later what remained was a subdued version of that mixture; a version of Judaism that was, let's just say unusual. To help people understand I sometimes describe Samaritans as “hippie Jews.” They were Jewish, to be sure, but their beliefs and practices were held under suspicion by…you know…proper folks.
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    So, when Jesus chooses to make a Samaritan the hero of a parable that he is using to work through the nuance of orthodoxy and orthopraxy, he’s teaching like a Third Order Jedi playing chess on a two-level-board. And it probably made the person asking the question's head explode.
   Episcopal Christians. Yes, you. I think maybe you can’t “believe whatever you want” and that maybe you can’t “live however we want.” But Jesus is certainly prioritizing the discussion for you. If you feel like you might get orthodoxy or orthopraxy wrong from time to time, Jesus wants you to place your best energies on love-in-action. And when you do that, you may very well be making up for all those times and places when you sometimes are indeed getting it wrong.

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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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Suspension of Disbelief

"Suspension of Disbelief" from "Lesser Feast" with an intro on the origins of the song. The song starts at 2:05.

 

Fire and Water

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

FireandwaterTSY

 

Christmas Eve 2019

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.

 

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!"
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“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.
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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.

God's Annoying Friend

A sermon given at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral on July 24, 2016, the 10th Sunday after Pentecost, considering Genesis 18:20-32 and Luke 11:1-13.

I have some idea of what God expects of me, but I have less confidence in naming specifically what it is I can expect from God. Think about that for a minute. I can have a good idea of what it God wants from me, but I’m less sure of what it is I am allowed to want from God.

Is that at the heart of the disciple’s question, “Lord, teach us how to pray.”

I was a hospital chaplain for a couple of years after I finished at the seminary and Karen was finishing up her PhD. My supervisor said to me, “I notice you tend not to pray for healing with your patients. Why is that?

I knew why, but was sheepish because I wasn’t proud of the reason. I didn’t want to raise their expectations of God. Ask God for healing, God does not grant you healing, and then these patients and their families are angry and upset with God.

His response to me? “Who made you God’s PR man? Does God need you to take care of him?”

Working in that same hospital, I received a call to a family in the cancer ward whose mother was soon to die after a long and difficult battle with cancer. The family had all gathered around her bedside because they wanted to be there when she died. For those of you who have gone through that experience you know that it isn’t always an easy thing to gauge. People tend not to die when we would like them to. It doesn’t happen the way it is depicted on TV or in movies.

But the nurse, in an effort to DO something tangible for them (because we want to do something tangible), suggested they call the chaplain to speak directly to their unconscious mother and tell her that it was okay to “let go.” Tell her that God was ready to receive her, the family was gathered to honor her, and that she didn’t need to fight anymore.

The nurse explained to me my assignment and after meeting the family and talking for a bit we moved around their mother’s bed, I spoke directly to her, something similar to what they had asking me to do, and then proceeded to invite them to join hands and pray to God, repeating a lot of what I said to their mother, but this time as an appeal directly to God.

“Show your mercy and loving kindness and assure your servant that she has fought the good fight, run the race set before her and she has kept the faith.” Something along those lines. And when I said “Amen,” I noticed that the family almost on cue, all at once, turned and looked their mother, expectantly, as though she would at that very moment, breath her last breath. And then after a few beats, when it didn’t happen, a few of them looked at me, as if to say, “Uh...it didn’t work.”

I wanted to say, “Look, I’m good, but I’m not THAT good.” They were tired, they were exhausted, and as happens with most families in similar situations, they eventually dispersed and she died with just a few of them by her bedside.

Jesus had been away praying, as he often did. When he returned, they asked him to teach them how to pray. Show us the way to relate to God so as live into its full potential. They had seen Jesus heal people, perform miracles. In this same Gospel, preceding this story, Jesus had sent out 70 people out in pairs to teach and to heal, and when they came back they were ecstatic. It worked. They told him, “Lord, even demons obey us when we use your name. And he tells them that he has given them authority over all the power of the enemy.”

Teach us how to pray. Tell us what to say.

The movie Shadowlands was about the relationship between C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidman, his wife late in life who died after a long battle with bone cancer. There is a scene in the movie when Lewis’ Priest is commiserating with him skeptical friends who are chiding him for praying for his wife Joy in her illness. The priest tells Lewis, after hearing bits of good news about her treatment that God is, to chagrin of skeptical friends, finally answering his prayers. Lewis responds,

 

“That’s not why I pray. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time – waking and sleeping. Prayer doesn’t change God- it changes me.”

Jesus does give us some language to use, but the words aren’t magic. They do not force the hand of God. The story Jesus tells afterwards gives the fuller picture of what the “formula” is for God to be active in your life. If you’re looking for a formula, Jesus gives you the Lord’s prayer, and this:

You must be persistent, like an annoying friend. You must come to God, no matter the circumstances, no matter the outcome. In fact, the story he tells is vague in the response of the friend. At first the friend says, "No. Go away."  But after second thought he gives in. It makes me think of marriage, all those times when spouses ask the other to do something even though we would prefer not to, but then turn around and do it anyway, in a huff, full of resentment.

It’s not the only time Jesus depicts prayer as bothering God until God reluctantly gives in. Later in the book of Luke Jesus compares God to an unfair and cantankerous judge, who only gives a woman seeking justice what she is asking for because she is bothering him and he just wants her to go away.

Why is Jesus being so sassy about prayer?

His tone is acerbic. He calls his disciples evil, for crying out loud! Is this what it looked like when Jesus was having a bad day?

The best answer I can come up with isn’t very satisfying. Perhaps Jesus is confounded that we are even asking the question. Maybe prayer is not that complicated. The relationship between God and human beings may be (I can have some good idea about what it is that God expects from me, but I am less sure of what it is that I can expect from God), but the bones of that interaction are not. Show up. Pray. Say anything.

Today’s Hebrew scripture was the story of Abraham haggling with God over whether or not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. You could say they are arguing. You could say that Abraham is trying to manipulate God, like a child asking parents for just 20 more minutes on the XBox, then 15 more minutes, then ten. But think about it, the only people we really care to argue with are the ones we are closest to.

Tonight, if you had no other choice than to wake up a friend because you needed something, which friend would you disturb? They are the ones who you are truly intimate with, the ones you trust with that kind of vulnerability. God is one of those people.

Frederick Buechner, wrote in his work The Magnificent Defeat:

If we are really seeking God’s power, then I have one thing to say--perhaps it is not the only thing, but it is enormously important: Ask for it...Pray. In whatever words you have. And if the little voice that is inside all of us as the inheritance of generations of unfaith, if this little voice inside says, "But I don't believe. I don't believe," don't worry too much. Just keep on anyway. "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief" is the best any of us can do really, but thank God it is enough.”

 

Endearing? Or a Little Creepy?

A sermon given at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection on the 5th Sunday in Epiphany, February 8th, 2015, by Fr. Tim Sean Youmans.  I Corinthians 6.16f and Mark 1.29-39.

 

Don’t change who you are to accommodate other people. This is common wisdom. At the center of it is the notion of integrity. If I tell you one thing about something we are discussing, and then I tell that other person over there something else, that is a form of lying. How can you ever trust anything I ever say to you?

We associate politicians with this practice, trying to connect to the broadest number of different kinds of people, it’s tough to get politicians to speak frankly about what they think, and often they are caught saying more than one thing to different folks. That’s why when someone says, “You sound like a politician” they are not complimenting you on your ability making a broad appeal. They are calling you a phony.

Having said that, hear again what the Apostle Paul wrote to the people in Corinth. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. And then he sorta repeats himself and says, “to those under the law I became as one under the law, though (and listen to this) though I myself am not under the law. I’m not like you, but I’m going to act as if, I am like you.

Now, because we respect the scriptures, and we all generally agree that God’s word is located within them, we are willing to give Paul the benefit of the doubt. But if we extract this way of thinking about relating to other people, if we extract it out of the scriptures, disconnect it from anything religious, we might see this as a shady practice. Dishonest even.

I have no doubt, that there are many of you here today whose work involves sales. I’d be curious to find out what level of temptation exists for you to shift your presentation or adjust your personality to fit the different kinds of people you are selling to.

I discovered years ago that I mimic. I don’t do it in a mocking way, in fact, since I caught myself doing it I try hard not to, but I do. I pick up pieces of your accent, or if you have a certain catch phrase, then I’ll use that when I’m around you. Even beyond that, I also find myself being a collector of a wide variety of knowledge­­bits and pieces of different subjects. For instance, I’m not an avid sports fan, it’s fair to say that my wife knows more about what’s happening in the sports world than I do, but I watch ESPN and read sports news because I know that all of you love the sportsball. And if I’m going to sell you the thing I’m trying to sell you, then I need to be able to meet you where you are. I become a sports fan, so that I might reach all sports fans for the gospel of Christ.

Paul says, “To the jew, I become as a Jew, to the Greek, a greek. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.”

Now I’m not trying to be overly difficult or contrary. But part of me takes an issue with Paul. Does this mean that in order to bring people to God we need to become something we are not, to present ourselves as someone we are not?

Said in a somewhat glib way, if you knew someone was studying up on the things you were interested in so they could possibly interest you in their religion, would be drawn to that? Or would you be creeped out a little? The answer may be one that I don’t like, found in the example of our Lord Jesus.

Mark’s gospel says that in the evening, at sundown, they brought to Jesus all who were sick or possessed with demons. And he cured them. And then he moved to the next set of towns, to proclaim his message in their synagogues and casting out demons. Town after town after town, he sought people out to heal them. Jesus wants people to know of God’s love for them. He wanted us to know this so badly that he altered himself, he became something he was not.

It’s said so poetically in a hymn, a song shared within the letter to the Philippians:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.

We want people to be interested in the good news of Jesus, we want them to find their way here to Church of the Resurrection in order to receive God’s grace. It’s partly why we like seeing different kinds of people in our church, children for those who have children, youth for those who visit with teenagers, young adults when a young married couple visit, and so on. Fr. Everett Lees from Christ Church Tulsa recently conveyed that a visitor recently told him that they like the church well enough, but that they didn’t have enough old people. You don’t hear that too often from an Episcopal Church. People want to see themselves in the groups they attach to.

“Be all things to all people so that by all means we might win some to Christ.” When God became human, this was an expression of his love for us, reaching across the lines that divide. When we take such a radical interest in others for the same reason, it’s not a lie, it’s love.