Blessed to Bless

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

 

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.

Viewing with Proper Vergence

Sermon audio and text from St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, 27 October 2013, Fr. Tim Sean Youmans.  Luke 18.9-14

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Have you read the Bible?  Sure you have.  Each of you in varying degrees.  It is a wonder-filled and troubling book.  

I spend a lot of time grappling with it.  And more so than the average clergy.  The class I teach at Casady, our Episcopal Preparatory school here in Oklahoma City, is a new endeavor of sorts.  We are trying to do a four year over-view of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, a fly-over, if you will.  And it’s for kids from families with a wide range of religious pieties, background and interest, from Hindu and Muslim, to atheist, agnostic and apathetic, all the way to evangelical pentecostals.  Never a dull day.  And so the range of questions that arise out of our reading of the Bible is stunning.

One of the things I’ve had to come to terms with in a fresh way because of this, is the basic premise of Judaism.  This is the faith of Jesus, our Lord, and so that makes all of us, by extension, sort of rogue Hebrews.  Our story, the Christian story, is a tributary of the Hebrew world view.  Shema Israel, Adonai elehenu, adonai ahad, Hear O’ Israel the Lord your God is one.  We are followers of the mono-theistic God, the one true God.

Judaism started with Abraham.  A semitic shepherd around 4000 years ago hears a voice?  And if not that, then a strong ideation?   That the polytheistic religions of his time were a cultural indulgence, that there really was only one God, not many, a mysterious God, and that this one God wanted, through Abraham and his descendants, wanted to create a special group of people, a chosen culture, for a chosen purpose.  Let me read it to you.

Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

What unfolds from the there is the terrifying and wonderful stories about the growth of this chosen culture.  

For the most part, over the years, I’ve never given the premise much thought.  I was raised in a Christian church and this story, and this idea, have simply been part of the my religious under-current.  It was like white noise in the room.  But a few years ago I was, as a minister, doing some very private re-evaluating, I gave this premise some scrutiny.  

God chose a nation, a culture, out of all the families and cultures on earth, to bless them and prosper them?  What were the implications of this?  Does this mean that other families, tribes and nations were not blessed?  Was God doing this independently, simultaneously, all over the globe, little out-posts of light and truth, peppered across time and history?  Or was it only the Hebrew tribe?

This was a private grappling, mind you.  You don’t go around questioning these bigger themes in scripture.  And I was a Baptist minister at the time, so there was that.  It was unsettling, and I can’t say I resolved anything then.  But maybe today, maybe, I can say that I have, or at minimum, have started to resolve it.

Back to Casady School Bible class.  This passage from Genesis, this call of Abraham.  It’s required learning in my class.  This is where Judaism starts, and so you have to know the story.  God comes to Abraham and Sarah and says, “I will make you a great nation, your descendants will number as many as there are stars in the sky and grains of sand on the sea-shore, whoever blesses you, I will bless, and whoever curses you I will curse.  And through you all the people of the earth will be blessed.

You will be blessed so you can bless.  Blessed to bless.  I’ve made it the theme of the class, I had a fancy sign made and posted it above my door that they are supposed to jump up and tap on their way out of class.  I’ve made this a BIG deal.

But here’s the peculiar thing I’ve noticed.  When I test them on this passage, and ask them, “What was the covenant God made with Abraham and Sarah?”  Not all of them, but most, write this:  “God told Abraham that I will make you a great nation, your descendants will be as many as the stars of the sky.  I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.”

 You know what they leave out?

Yeah.  “And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”  They truncate it.  It gets lost in translation, like an anemic branch that never takes root in the tree.  And I make a pretty big deal out this.  A BIG deal.  They forget.  The, “we’re awesome” part they remember, the “I’m going to bless you” part fades away.

Do you know what a stereogram is?  It’s one of those posters that has a series of geometric patterns that at first glance just look like a busy wallpaper, but if you look at it long enough, an image emerges.  You see them at fairs and gift shops.  I’m terrible at them.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen the image.  The stereogram allows you to convey the experience of depth perception to the person looking at by means of stereopsis for binocular vision.  It present a slightly different image to each eye, and then together, in tandem, it will allow you to see the thing that isn’t immediately visible.  It's called viewing with proper vergence.

The over-all arc of the Hebrew and Christian scripture is like this.  It presents a wide variety of images, sometimes divergent images, but if you look at it long enough, a separate image appears.  Maybe one you’ve never seen, but its there.  It is the image that Jesus gives in this parable of the two men at Temple.  

The image available to the eye at first glance is the life well lived; the responsible life, the person who does what they are supposed to do, the good son and daughter, the chosen one, the blessed one.  But if you will look longer and spend time with the collection of images, then a different image emerges, of a God who loves everyone, who wants to bless everyone, and include everyone.  

This is the image that is emerging within the Episcopal Church, that is emerging here at St. Paul’s Cathedral.  It is the picture that God has been painting in human history since he conveyed to a semitic shepherd and his wife, Abraham and Sarah, in Assyria some 4000 years ago.  Through you all the people of the earth will be blessed.  All of them.

What if God is a playful God, and the the call of Abraham, is a not-so-inconsequential riddle that God has posed to us.  I will bless you and make you special.  Now show me what comes next.  Well, St. Paul’s?  What comes next?

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