Maundy Thursday Sermon Year C
“God’s Unfathomable Love”
April 14, 2022
The Rev. Peter Faass, Rector
Christ Church, Shaker Heights
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
 
 
There are three holy nights in the Christian faith: Christmas Eve, Easter Vigil, and tonight, Maundy Thursday.
 
Christmas Eve is rich with awe and wonder as we recall the unfathomable love of God for we humans, as God becomes enfleshed in Jesus. As we sing in “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” “veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail th'incarnate Deity.”
 
The Easter Vigil sees us sitting in twinkling candlelight as we re-call God’s mighty acts of salvation in human history, all leading to that ultimate act of salvation as the stone sealing the tomb explodes open, the Risen Lord bursting forth in new life. Again, we witness the unfathomable love of God as Jesus passes over from death into life, trampling death down once and for all. Hymnody again captures the essence of this truth, “Love’s redeeming work is done, fought the fight, the battle won. Death in vain forbids him rise; Christ has opened paradise.
 
Both evenings proclaim the abundant, unlimited richness of God’s love for us. To paraphrase St. Athanasius, the Incarnation - the Word becoming flesh - occurred so we might become “partakers of the divine nature.”  The Resurrection occurred so that we might be freed from the bonds of death and live without fear. “Christ Jesus lay in death’s strong bands for our offenses given; but now at God’s right hand he stands and brings us life from heaven.”
And then there’s tonight, Maundy Thursday, when all that unfathomable love expressed in both the Incarnation and the Resurrection is captured in three intimate acts of love. 
But Maundy Thursday is significantly different from Christmas Eve and the Vigil, because the Incarnation and Resurrection are acts of love given to humanity by the Deity of God. Tonight, we are given three things that witness to God’s unfathomable love for us by the human Jesus.
 
The first of those three gifts Jesus gives us is the Mandatum Novum, the new commandant, after which this day is named. Jesus said to his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” On the night before he dies, Jesus sums up his whole ministry in this new commandment. Do unto others as I have done to you.  Love wildly and radically. Love the least of these. The unlovable. The marginalized. The despised. Those who hate you. Even all those who defy or deny the love I have brought to the world.  Do not respond to hatred with hatred. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Mt. 5:44) Give to all the unfathomable love of God that I have given you.
 
The second gift is given through the foot-washing. This was a humiliating act in the culture of first century Palestine; an act that only a servant would have performed.  At the Last Supper this role is assumed by Jesus, in a supreme act of humility, as he washes his disciple’s feet. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians he writes, that [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.” (Philippians 2: 6-8)
In washing the disciple’s feet Jesus did what none of them would ever have thought of doing.  Even as fishermen, farmers, and tax collectors, people pretty much at the bottom of the totem pole in that society, such an act would have been considered humiliating .  Yet Jesus tells them, “Surely if I do this, you ought to be prepared to do it. I am giving you an example of how to behave towards each other.”  Our status in life, our sense of entitlement, our wealth, our university degrees, our ordination status, all of that are worth nothing in God’s Reign.   If God incarnate can kneel before us in humble service in a display of God’s unfathomable love for us, then surely, we can humble ourselves and do so as well for each other.
And for the record: the foot-washing becomes symbolic of how we should be humble in all our encounters with each other.  It’s not just this one act, on this one night of the year.  While the foot-washing is not an official sacrament, it is truly a sacramental act; an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.  That grace is intended to transform us in all of life, each and every day, making us witnesses of God’s unfathomable love in all we do and say.
In a commentary I read the writer called the foot-washing act by Jesus, The Royalty of Service. I love that imagery!  When we engage in acts of humility toward others we are engaged in the royal service of God’s Kingdom. 
 
The third gift Jesus gives us this night is the Eucharist; the gift of the bread and wine, his body and blood.  Each time we celebrate this sacred meal we do so, as he commanded us, in remembrance of him.  Each time we partake of the Eucharist we are reminded of the sacrifice of Jesus’ life on the Cross, as well as his Resurrection from the grave, both gifts of God’s unfathomable love for us.  But this holy meal is more than an act evoking a memory, it is the food that gives us true life.  As Jesus told the disciples, ““I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (Jn. 6:35)
The Eucharist transforms us. To paraphrase the first letter of John, when we eat the bread and drink the cup, Jesus abides in us and we in him.  Being so intimately interconnected with Jesus, the Eucharist is the food for our journeys which sustains us as we strive to follow Him.
 
This is a holy night, indeed. God’s unfathomable love for us is richly given in three sacred gifts.  May Christ’s Body and Blood nourish us so we may live lives of humble service, loving one another as we have been profoundly loved.
Amen.

The Rev. Peter Faass, Rector
Christ Church, Shaker Heights
John 12:1-8
 
Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought [the nard] so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
It’s interesting the amount of attention this particular verse about the poor always gets from people, evoking mostly adverse responses.  I say this because the other verses really should draw our attention considering how provocative – even racy – this Gospel story is.   Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with this outrageously expensive nard and then wiping them with her hair is scandalous!  So, it’s interesting to see people zeroing in on the phrase about the poor and not the racy stuff.   One would think that it is Mary’s actions, which are fraught with suggestive imagery, especially in the context of the culture of first century Palestine, would draw attention, even outrage. After-all she is a woman touching a man’s feet in a culture that would have interpreted such an action to be those of a woman of ill repute.  And Mary’s hair is down, uncovered in front of a group of men, none of whom is a relative or her husband, another serious cultural taboo.   Add to that her taking this exotic perfume worth nearly a year’s salary for a common day laborer, and then using  it all up to anoint Jesus, an action seen as one of significant wastefulness, well, at least by Judas!  As I said, this is a shocking, suggestive Gospel passage.
But this racy material gets relegated to a secondary status. It is Jesus’ comment about always having the poor with us - offered as a reprimand to Judas when he criticized what he saw as Mary’s wastefulness - that catches people’s attention and even offends them. 
What drives this is its seeming contrariness of who we believe Jesus to be.  We think, “Jesus should be on the same page as Judas. He certainly would not tolerate such wastefulness when there is so much poverty and suffering that needs to be addressed.  Jesus would never sublimate the poor to a secondary status for his own benefit.  Jesus wouldn’t utter such a callous comment about people he clearly has a preference for in everything he says and does in his ministry.”
But there you have it, right there in the text. It does seem like he does all of those things. And if that’s true how do we account for it?  How do we not lose the Jesus of our faith?  How do we reconcile the Jesus who says such a thing about the poor in the midst of such extravagant waste?
I understand people’s objections.  This passage is worthy of some study and explanation, not the least because it has been so misinterpreted, and even abused by some folks. 
Think about it.  On first glance it appears that Jesus is giving his blessing to using money extravagantly in a wasteful manner, to the exclusion of taking care of the poor.  This passage has frequently been used to justify a defeatist attitude toward efforts – both secular and religious – to ease the plight of the poor.  This argument believes that this scripture tells us that even Jesus sees such programs as a waste of time and money. “See! You’ll always have the poor with you, regardless of what you try to do to improve their situation.  It’s hopeless. If this is Jesus’ attitude toward the poor, then why should we be funding Medicaid, Head Start, the SNAP program, and subsidized housing? After all you’ll always have the poor with you, regardless of what you do. Better to use that money in other ways. Better to look after your own needs; be extravagant with yourself, get those things you want. Better to use the money by giving tax breaks to the richest 1% in our society; pour the nard of abundant and aromatic tax cuts on their feet. Then we’ll incentivize a trickle-down economy and we’ll all benefit.”
If you think what I just said is harsh and a bit sarcastic, it’s meant to be. And I’m fine with that because the reality is Jesus could be harsh when people took God’s words, which are intended to build up God’s Reign, and twisted those words to their own devices.   Which is precisely what is taking place when this passage is used to justify not funding, not contributing, not volunteering to help the neediest among us. For those who doubt the veracity of this claim, please reference Jesus’ parable about the goats and the sheep in Matthew 25; that’s the plumb line by which we measure Jesus’ desires for our behaviors.
So, is Jesus disparaging the poor when he tells Judas to leave Mary alone, not fret about this extravagant act, because, well, “you always have the poor with you?”  Is he telling us to forget them?  Is he saying it’s okay to just tend to our own needs?  No! He is saying just the opposite.  Mary’s actions inform us just how costly discipleship is: just how sacrificial following Jesus will be for us, if we do it faithfully.
Ask yourself this question.  Where did Mary acquire the money to purchase the nard?  Did she use money from her dowry, thereby jeopardizing her changes at a good marriage, or a marriage at all? Certainly, buying the nard would have diminished her dowry, and her behavior in anointing Jesus’ feet certainly diminished her reputation.  It actually put it in great jeopardy.  Her seemingly inappropriate behavior would have deterred an eligible man to take her as a wife, even if she had a substantial dowry.
 What her actions are intended to do is have us see and understand that in all she did, Mary was sacrificing her own security, her own future, her reputation and her dignity so that she could be a witness of what faithful disciple to Jesus looks like.  Mary’s action informs us that the cost of disciple can be expensive.
In her actions Mary risked impoverishing herself both financially and reputationally, so that she could honor the One who taught her how to care for the least of these by his teachings and his example. Can we see in her actions that she loved Jesus because he was the One who taught her that she mattered, that she had value as a person, despite how the rest of society marginalized her as a woman.
Frankly, I think Mary learned her lessons about God’s Reign well, when she was taught sitting at Jesus’ feet.  I think that is why she did what she did: in gratefulness to Jesus for recognizing her self-worth. For giving her dignity. Mary’s witness is an object lesson that caring for the least of those among us changes everything; for them and for us.  
In this moment of sacrificial discipleship as Mary anointed Jesus so extravagantly, intimately and at great cost to her, Mary teaches us a lesson of critical importance for our own faith lives.  It is a testimony of love. Jesus’ accepting and defending her sacrificial gift invites us to witness the sacrificial gift he is about to make of his own life on the Cross.  It is through his passion and death that Jesus testifies to God’s abundant love for the world. It is through Mary’s witness that we see abundant love for God’s ways, here and now. Hers is an object lesson showing us that we can sacrifice all we have to live into God’s ways as well.  It’s a witness to authentic discipleship.
I think that’s the pearl of great value hidden in the field of this story.   When we understand the outpouring of love Mary offered to Jesus in her sacrifice, and then witness the love Jesus offers the world in his sacrifice, we are empowered and encouraged to a life of sacrifice as well, so that we may care for the poor all around us, not ignore them.
The next time Jesus’ words and behavior throw a curve ball at you, remember this: Jesus is always looking to startle us, challenge our assumptions, get our attention, prod and nudge us forward, even if it means shocking us into having us doubt his reputation.
Frankly, you’ve got to watch out for this Jesus guy. He won’t stop trying to get us to build up God’s Reign. He’ll sacrifice everything – including his life - to call us to discipleship.       
Amen. 

The Rev. Peter Faass, Rector
Christ Church, Shaker Heights
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
 
The familiar parable of the Prodigal Son is one of a triptych of parables in Luke chapter fifteen.  The first one is about a lost sheep whose owner leaves the remaining flock of ninety-nine to go and find it. The second is about a woman who loses a coin and relentlessly sweeps and searches the house until it is found.  The third – our Gospel for today - is about the younger of two sons of a father, who asks his dad for his share of the family fortune; in other words, his inheritance before his father dies. This was a very insulting thing to do, as the subtext of so doing is like saying to your father, I wish you were dead.  But inexplicably the father does so. 
Being young and impetuous, the son goes off to a foreign country – read gentile territory - engages in dissolute living and quickly squanders everything he has, leaving himself impoverished. He is so desperate that he is compelled to hire himself out as a farm hand where he ends up slopping the pigs. This is dirty work, made more so by the fact that the son is a Jew and pigs are treyf, a Yiddish word meaning non-kosher and therefore unclean.  So, the younger son is not only submerged in the filth of his dirty work, but surrounded by – for him – the dirtiest of animals. For him it’s a disgusting, seemingly hopeless, and deplorable situation.
 
The scripture then tells us that, “when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."
 
The phrase “when he came to himself” is critical here.  It tells us that he has hit rock bottom.  He can’t fall any further in his life. He is bereft of everything: his dignity, his self-worth, his rightful place in the social order of life.  But in coming to himself, he has an epiphany, he comes to his senses.  The son realizes that there is food enough at his father’s home where he can at least escape the ravages of hunger and maybe find a place for himself as a laborer among his father’s hired hands.  In other words, at least break out the degradation of his current circumstances among the pigs.
It is important to note that the son has no intention of asking to be reinstated to his former status.  He clearly states that he will tell his father, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” He is remorseful for what he has done and humbled.  All he wants is an opportunity to not starve any longer and to have a modicum of his dignity restored. His basic hope is to escape the hell he is in.
 
But when the father espies his son coming down the road he is filled with compassion and he runs to meet his lost son, throws his arms around him and kisses him. Then he tells his servants to get a beautiful robe to cloth him with, put a ring on his finger, and sandals on his feet. And oh, yes, get that fated calf and prepare a huge feast because we need to celebrate, “’for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate. The filthy son is covered with honor and love.
When his older brother comes home and learns of what has happened, he becomes angry and refuses to join in the celebration. He gets into an argument with his father. I’ve been loyal to you and worked my fingers to the bone on this farm.  I’ve done everything right and yet you never give me a thing.  But when this reprobate brother of mine, who squandered your money, comes home you pull out all the stops and have a feast. 
 
At this juncture of the story I always have this uncontrollable desire to smack this guy on the side of the head, and tell him that it’s not all about him!  Some people just love a pity party!
Ever compassionate the father replies, “'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'" In other words, you have at your disposal everything that I own, you have all that you need, you may have what you desire, you just didn’t opt to take advantage of it.  Please don’t become the party pooper when I choose to share from the abundance that we have when your brother has had an amendment of life, has redeemed himself and come home. Because that calls for rejoicing!
In the opening verses of this parable we are told, “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."  This is the lens though which we must view this parable.  It is a response to Jesus mingling with sinners and tax collectors, which was seen as deplorable behavior by the religious elites.  Just like the older son sees his father’s behaviors toward the younger son as deplorable.
Earlier in Luke when Jesus encounters such grumbling about who he associated with from the same religious elites, he stated, ““Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”(LK 5:31-32)  I can only imagine he made that statement with more than a touch of irony and a dash of sarcasm.  Because the truth is none of us are righteous or well, all of us are sick and sinners. Which means we are all in need of the healing love Jesus the physician dispenses. We are all in need of redemption. None of us has the right to look with disdain from some lofty perch of superiority at another person and consider them inferior or beyond the pale.
But the sad reality is that like the Pharisees and scribes, many of us do.  And many of us would prefer to see a perceived sinner kept in misery, if not actually destroyed. We have an adverse response when we think someone who has sinned and becomes remorseful for their sins is being forgiven and offered an opportunity at redemption.  At new life. In fact, we even resent the opportunity being given.  We prefer the suffering to the rejoicing.
 
Our criminal justice system is a prime example of this. It is built on the principle of retributive justice where the so-called repair of justice is based on punishment by incarceration and the hellish culture of prison life; punishment, which is all too often applied well-beyond the level of any committed crime. And also, with a huge racial bias.  We enjoy seeing people who we see as sinful suffer – long and hard. Even if they are repentant and make amendment of life. Stay filthy, we think. Stay slopping them hogs. And stay away from me.  We are the Pharisees and scribes. We are the older son.
Yet the father in the parable offers restorative justice.   He desires the rehabilitation of his son and his egregious behaviors through reconciliation with his victims – who are he and his older brother.  Truth be told this story is really about the prodigal father. He is the one who offers extravagant, even reckless love, to make his son’s life whole again.   This parable tells us that restorative justice is the way of God. It is the way we are called to as well.
Where in your life do you seek the undue punishment of someone who may have wronged you?  Even if that person is remorseful and desires reconciliation. Where do you engage in canceling or ghosting them? Of being angry instead of choosing to rejoice? Where do we desire in keeping a person filthy – like the younger son- instead of covering them with honor and love, like the father did.
 
No one – and I mean no one - who desires to be restored to right relationship with God and their neighbor is beyond the restorative, redemptive love of God. Even those who deliberately rebel and sin. Just like the prodigal son.  And frankly what we think about that kind of justice doesn’t matter. That’s the point of the parable.  It’s the way of God’s Reign. And that’s good news!
We don’t know if the older son came to himself like his brother did.  The parable is left open-ended for us to imagine: for us to become the older son and ponder what we would do.  Will we come to our senses and apprehend the truth of Jesus’ love?   
Jesus said, “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” (LK 15:7) Again, he had to have said that with some irony.  But I hope we get the point.  In God’s realm it’s all about the redemption and rejoicing. So, let’s come to ourselves and like the father rejoice. Let’s enter the feast and party.
Amen.

Luke 13:31-35
 
“Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you." He said to them, "Go and tell that fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.”
 
It takes a very brave person to call a reigning monarch a fox!
 
Legend has it that Hugh Latimer, one of the Oxford martyrs and Bishop of Worchester, went into the pulpit at Westminster Abbey one Sunday, and looking down saw that King Henry VIII was in the congregation. Latimer was about to preach a tough sermon, that he suspected might not please the king. Taking a deep breath and making a leap of faith, Latimer began to preach. “Latimer! Latimer! Latimer! Be careful what you say, the king of England is here!” Then he continued, “Latimer!  Latimer! Latimer! Be careful what you say.  The King of Kings is here!” He then continued with his tough sermon.
 
It takes a tough person to stand up to the powers and principalities of this world, to defend your values and beliefs, giving allegiance to a greater moral good.   In the case of Jesus, his values were those of God’s Reign and his allegiance was to God his Father, not to Herod.   For Hugh Latimer, his values were those of the Gospel and his allegiance to Jesus, and not to Henry VIII.
And to cite a current analogy: Volodymyr Zelensky’s values are those of righteousness, justice, and peace, and his allegiance is to the Ukrainian people, their culture, and their nation, not to Vladimir Putin.   
 
If you think Jesus’ calling Herod a fox and then referring to himself as a hen who desires to gather her imperiled brood under her wings to protect them sounds a bit like an Aesop’s Fable, you’d be right!  There is such a fable titled “The Hen and the Fox.” I wonder where Aesop got this idea from! This fable is the one where the sly, conniving fox tried hard to get a roosting hen out of a tree by telling the hen that their two families had made peace and they were now friends. But the hen knew better than to come down to her doom. The hen outwits the fox by pretending to see some hounds coming their way.  And the fox runs off. The moral of this fable is the trickster is easily tricked.
The scripture gives no indication that King Herod Antipas wanted to kill Jesus, but it does say that certain Pharisees and other members of the religious establishment did.  So, the Pharisees telling Jesus that Herod wants to kill him is a ruse. They are using Herod as a foil to try and upset Jesus, to frighten him so he ceases and desists from his ministry.  Even maybe, make go away, as they do tell him to get away from here. 
This tells us that the real foxes are the conniving Pharisees.  And like in Aesop’s Hen and the Fox, Jesus tricks the tricksters.  He is not alarmed by their false report of Herod’s supposed murderous intent. Rather he calmly replies that he’s busy doing God’s work, so why don’t you go away and stop bothering me.  He sees through the Pharisees subterfuge and undermines their willy intent. Jesus outfoxes them.
The Greek word that the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible translates as wants, as in “Herod wants to kill you,” is thelo which is more accurately translated as desires, making the text then read, Herod desires to kill you.  Thelo is used two more times in this passage. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you [did not desire it!]
 
Here Jerusalem represents the people Jesus came to proclaim God’s Reign to, who in this particular scripture passage are represented by the Pharisees, leaders of the religious establishment. 
In his lament over Jerusalem, Jesus is proclaiming that he desires one thing, and the people he has come to minister to – to offer God’s salvation - desire something else altogether.
What Jesus desires are the ways of God’s Reign: peace, justice, humility, compassion, equality, radical inclusion of all people.
What the Pharisees desire are the exact opposite: turmoil and violence, pride, power, arrogance, lack of concern for the other, subjugation, exclusion.
 
The civil and religious leaders of Jesus’ day didn’t desire Jesus and his values because they saw them as a threat to their power. To them Jesus was dangerous. Which is why they wanted him dead.
 
In the same way the values that Volodymyr Zelensky holds are a threat to Putin and his desire for power, subjugation, turmoil, and empire.  While Zelensky is not a follower of the King of Kings, he does hold on to the values of the God of Israel, and his morals are formed in that crucible, just as Jesus’ were.  
 
To Putin, Zelensky is dangerous because the Ukrainian’s values and those of the people he leads are a threat.  As more and more people in Russia cast their eyes on Zelensky’s values, they might be desired by the Russian people who live under a brutal regime, and that would be a disaster for Putin and his grip on Russia. Therefore, Putin the fox, desires Zelensky the hen dead.
 
So far, the Hen has tricked the trickster. May it continue to be so.
It is my fervent belief that the values of God’s Reign will ultimately prevail in all things. Which means I believe that those who hold the values of that Reign will also ultimately prevail.  Maybe not initially, but ultimately. Jesus endured the worst from the powers that opposed him, who denied his values. But those values ultimately prevailed in his Resurrection. 
 
Regretfully, the worst is not over for the Ukrainian people.  But because of the values they are fighting for, they too will prevail. They will find new resurrected life. They will outfox the fox.
 
May our prayers, our willingness to endure some financial discomfort and hardship to support their struggle, our commitment to help those who have been imperiled by this war, and our determination to proclaim the values of God’s Reign be our witness to our solidarity with the Ukrainians and their values, and to proclaim the good news of the King of Kings.
 
Amen.

The Rev. Peter Faass, Rector
Luke 4:1-3
 
A few years ago, when I was convalescing from surgery, I found myself unable to read.  Between the trauma of the wounds and the medications I was on, focusing on the written page was difficult and made me dizzy.  So, I turned to television as a source of entertainment and low and behold, discovered the hit Showtime and Amazon Prime program, Billions.  Have you seen Billions?  It’s a captivating drama about billionaires and what they do to increase their already obscene wealth. And trust me, at least according to the writers, there is absolutely nothing these billionaires will stop at to get richer and more powerful.
 
In the first few seasons of the show the primary billionaire was Bobby Axelrod, a hedge fund manager worth upwards of $10 billion. Money and power mean everything to Bobby and nothing, not even his wife and two sons, or his self-respect, or his standing in society, will deter him from attaining them.
His chief protagonist is United States Attorney, Chuck Rhoades, who is obsessed with bringing down Bobby and his many shady, if not outright illegal financial dealings.  Chuck is obsessed on bringing Bobby down.  Like with Bobby his marriage and family suffer for it.  While initially he appears to be a good guy, Chuck is manipulative, controlling, and unscrupulous, stopping at nothing to destroy Bobby.
There’s a great cast of characters, mostly employees of Axelrod’s hedge fund and employees of the US Attorney’s Office.  The plot twists and turns are incredibly cleaver and engrossing with the over-arching theme being the battle for supremacy – or maybe better put, destruction - between Rhoades and Axelrod.
 
The fuel that drives this battle is temptation. Over time each and every character in the show – even the ones you think initially are good and on the side of righteousness, to the degree that Billions can be righteous – end up falling for the seductive lures of temptation: the temptations of money, power, sex, and control.
I keep on hoping that one character will be a savior figure who will resist the incredible temptations dangled before them daily.  I had great hopes in new billionaire who was added to the show two seasons ago named Mike Prince.  Mike appears to be a good billionaire with high-minded values.  In fact he comes off as being so good, that he’s almost saintly, so much so that Bobby derisively calls him Mike Thomas Aquinas Prince. Prince talks a good game about clean finances, above board hedge fund practices, and social justice investing, but sadly, (spoiler alert!) he too ends up caving into his lusts for more money and power and the elimination of his nemesis, Bobby Axelrod.
While entertaining, Billions reveals the monstrous, demonic behaviors of not only the billionaires and the US Attorney, but all those who get co-opted into their orbits. And on Billions apparently that’s everyone.
All these characters make Faustian bargains with the devil, selling their souls in return for worldly pleasures.
In our Gospel today, we hear of Jesus’ temptations by the devil in the wilderness. When Jesus successfully resists those temptations we are told that, [the devil] “departed from him until an opportune time.” The devil doesn’t give up . . .  ever. In Billions every moment of every day is an opportune time for the devil to take control of people’s souls. Billions is the devil’s sandbox.
It’s tempting – pun intended – to look down at the characters on Billions as they submit to all these temptations and see them as morally and ethically lesser than us, well lesser but with mansions, yachts, servants, ski vacations to St. Moritz, private jets, and unlimited French champagne!  I know I do.
I find myself being like the Pharisee in the parable where the superior Pharisee arrogantly looks down his nose at the inferior tax collector and prays, “‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”   My prayer is similar: God, I thank you that I am not like these people on Billions, who sell their souls to the devil for every temptation dangled before them. I certainly have much stronger morals and ethical values than they do.
In much of life we are tempted to believe we are morally superior to others, successfully resisting the devil when he figures out our weak points, and tries to seductively lure us with financial gain, power, control, sexual pleasure, holding out a cornucopia of worldly pleasures before us.  
Our struggles during Lent to successfully deny ourselves caffeine, chocolate, pastry, adult beverages, or whatever we have given up, tells us otherwise.
We are not stronger or superior to the characters on Billions or anyone else for that matter.  To believe that is to fall for the temptation of hubris, which is sinful.  Temptation is a universal human experience.  Falling for them equally so. We all encounter temptations great and small every day. And when I say all, I include Jesus.
Jesus had to be sorely tempted by the offer to turn stones into bread when he was famished, or submitting to the devil in return for authority over the world’s kingdoms, or tempting God by throwing himself off the Temple. 
Christian theology states that Jesus was fully human and fully divine.  Which means we believe that being fully human Jesus experienced every single human emotion, feeling, desire, and lust that we do. If he had not been tempted he would not have been fully human. Because he was, Jesus had to have struggled with whether or not to cave in to those temptations the devil offered.
But we also believe that, as it says in the letter to the Hebrews and in our proper preface for Lent, that Jesus “was tempted in every way as we are, yet did not sin.” In other words, Jesus did not make a Faustian bargain with the devil.
What gave the human Jesus the where-with-all, the strength, to resist the temptations he was offered?
A commentary I read believes that in resisting the devil in the wilderness Jesus fulfills the command that is central to Judaism: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deut. 6:4-5) This is the Shema, the foundational statement of faith of Judaism and the first of the two great commandments that Jesus offers us.
Jesus declines the temptation to make bread to meet his physical cravings, because it would have meant turning away from loving God and submitting to the devil. He rejects the temptation to compromise his devotion to God so to rule over all the earth’s kingdoms, gaining mammon and power, because it would have meant he was not worshipping God with all his soul. And finally, he refuses to put God to the test to deliberately place himself in danger- a sort of theological Russian roulette - because it would have indicated his lack of trust in God and when you don’t trust, you can’t fully love. In each temptation Jesus focused on loving God with all his heart, soul, and might, which gave him the strength to reject all the worldly pleasures placed before him.
One of the petitions in the Great Litany this morning asked God to save us, from sins of body and mind; from deceits of the world, flesh and the devil.”  It’s a bold prayer request, but not an impossible one.  Jesus showed us the way to do it.  When temptations lure you, remember that you are called first and foremost to love God with all your heart, soul, and strength. 
Any pursuit, priority, or preoccupation that diverts from that purpose should be seen for what it is: the devil’s temptation.  
Every day we have held before us life and death, blessings and curses. The devil disguises death and curses seductively. It’s easy to fall for them.  But never forget, he is a tempter and a liar.  God holds out life and blessings and they are always the way of love, because they are from God who is love.  My friends, choose life, choose blessings.
In so doing you will finally beat down Satan’s temptations under your feet.  And when you do, you may not be a billionaire, maybe thankfully so, but you’ll be rich beyond compare.
Amen.

Ash Wednesday Sermon, Year C, 2022
 
I will admit that coming to church today and hearing the message that we are but ashes and dust, and to dust we shall return is not exactly what I want to hear. We are reminded of death and our mortality each and every day in profound and frightening ways: this hideous and heart-breaking war the Russians are waging against the Ukrainian people, the Chinese genocide against the Uighers, the on-going ravages of illness and death wrought by COVID, the daily drum-beat of how we may be past the point of no-return in saving this fragile earth our island home from environmental apocalypse.   Mortality and the Specter of death surround us. It’s inescapable.
And while I’m more than willing, to paraphrase our Collect, to lament the sins and acknowledge the wretchedness of Vladimir Putin, Chinese Communists, anti-vaxxers, and those who degrade the environment to acquire lucre, I’m in little mood to do the same for myself. I don’t want to deal with more death, most especially my own!
But, here we are. Embarking upon another season of Lent when we are invited to engage in some serious self-examination of who we really are, and how far away that reality is from the way God desires us to be.  And the truth is, if we are to truly acknowledge the reality of our lives, we need to acknowledge those sinful and wretched behaviors, the less-desirable, bad bits and pieces of our lives, so that we can amend them.  This is not to engage in some perverse theology of our being miserable worms and totally depraved creatures, wearing some torturous mental cilice that painfully cuts into our flesh to unfailingly remind us of our wretchedness every minute of the day.
It is rather to acknowledge that, as it states in our Absolution for today, God “desires not the death of sinners, but rather that they may turn from their wickedness and live.”  And it is to find hope in the promise.
C.S. Lewis once said, “Die before you die. There is no chance after.”  In other words, die to those behaviors and beliefs that prevent you from fully living. That strangle the life from you and make you as good as dead.  Stop being a creature in the television program, The Walking Dead.  Because the truth is we can be breathing and have a beating heart, but be as dead as a doornail.
Ash Wednesday and Lent help remind us of this.
When today’s liturgy focuses on our mortality it doesn’t do so out of a morbid sense of doom, but as a reminder that tomorrow is not guaranteed . . . for anyone. It reminds us that life is fragile. Like C.S. Lewis, Ash Wednesday calls us to live life as fully as possible. Every moment of every day. And we do that best through love. Ash Wednesday calls us to love.  But we can’t fully love if we are burdened by selfishness, by parsimoniousness, by enmity, by self-aggrandizement, by lusts and gluttony, by an estranged relationship with God.  These are all barriers to love.  They are wicked and wretched things. They are not of love. They keep us from living as God would have us live.
The self-examination and disciplines of Lent are vehicles to acknowledge how these behaviors prevent us from fully living. And then to make amendments of life, so we can fully live; dying to them before we actually die.
Conversely, and maybe counter-intuitively, Ash Wednesday also reminds us of our immortality.
I shared this story with the brothers of St. Andrew’s when they prepared our ashes a few weeks ago.
My first Ash Wednesday as a rector was in 2002, at the parish of St. John the Baptist in New Hampshire. I decided I would prepare my own ashes from the dried-up palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday. I needed a container to burn the palms in and decided that a sturdy cooking pot from the parish kitchen was perfect. Not wanting to mar the pot and risk the ire of the women’s guild, I lined it with heavy gauge aluminum foil.  Enthusiastically I burned my palms.  It was a lovely fire that burned intensely at first and then died down as the palms turned to ash. This was on the day before Ash Wednesday.
Well, unbeknownst to me, aluminum foil flakes under high heat.  As I sifted the ash to filter out any embers, I was shocked to see sparkly, starry, silver glitter in those ashes.
As I said, it was the day before Ash Wednesday, and I was in rural New Hampshire.  I had no choice but to use the ashes I had. So, that year the good folks of St. John’s had ashes with star-like glitter imposed on their foreheads.  Honestly, instead of hearing the hymn, Forty Days and Forty Nights that Ash Wednesday I developed an ear worm and could only hear that late great New York ingénue Barbara Cooke singing “Glitter and Be Gay.”  It was a unique moment!
Scientists tell us that stars that go supernova are responsible for creating many of the elements of the periodic table, including those that make up the human body. These elements are called stardust and they have been falling to the earth’s atmosphere for billions of years. They are a part of the earth and the cycle of life, not only here on earth but in the entire cosmos.  We ingest all these elements when we eat plants and animals which are part of this great cycle of life. These elements comprise nearly 100% of who we are.  Ergo, we are made of stardust.  Which, when you think about it, makes us immortal. When we die, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we remain part of the ongoing cycle of the life of stardust, continuing to feed new life, eternally a part of the immortality of life.
In hindsight, those glittery, aluminum foil flaked ashes twenty years ago, were a lovely reminder of our being stardust. For us today they are a reminder that we are called by Ash Wednesday to fully glitter and shine with the fullness and joy of the life God desires us to have. We do that when we amend our lives and get rid of the sinful and wretched stuff.    
Knowing this propels us to love. To engage, appreciate, honor and love all life of which we are inextricably connected to for eternity.  To love is to glitter and be gay in a lovely and holy way.  Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Now go, live your live fully, as God desires you to do.
Amen. 

The Rev. Peter Faass, Rector
Luke 9:28-43a
I suspect that there were times when dealing with the disciples that Jesus thought he was dealing with the Seven Dwarfs: Grumpy, Dopey, Doc, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Sleepy.  Because at one time or another in scripture the disciples display characteristics of each of the seven . . . well, almost all seven.  I’m having a difficult time locating Sneezy in the Gospels, but I’m working on it!
Take for example the Confession of Peter, which directly precedes today’s Transfiguration event.  This is the story where Jesus asks the disciples who they believe him to be?  Peter declares Jesus to be, “The Messiah of God.”  This is Peter being Doc. Smart, analytical, willing to offer a diagnosis.  But then when Jesus describes the suffering and death the Messiah must undergo, Peter contradicts Jesus and says, “God forbid it Lord! This must never happen to you.” (Matt. 16:22b) In this moment Peter becomes Dopey.  Just when you think Peter gets it, he doesn’t.  He becomes as dumb as a rock, which is something he does frequently in the Gospels. He’s definitely Dopey!
 
In today’s text we have the Sleepy disciples. We are told, “Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.”
Of the three renditions of the Transfiguration in the Synoptic Gospels, only Luke mentions that the disciples are, “weighed down with sleep.”  Matthew and Mark do not mention it at all.
In translations other than the New Revised Standard Version we hear today, we read, the disciples are actually fast asleep.  The New American Bible states, “Now Peter and his companions had been overcome with sleep; but when they were fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men standing with Him.” (Luke 9:32)  
Regardless of the translation, we can agree that the disciples were either drowsy and nodding off, or fully sawing logs.
 
In this passage sleep functions as the faithless counterpart to watching and praying.  Praying, by the way, is also something that only Luke has Jesus engaged in on the mountaintop. In the text the power of prayer mediates the presence of God, which is witnessed both in the radiance of Jesus face and his dazzling garments, as well as by the voice from heaven declaring, “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him!”
 
You will recall another scripture passage about sleepy disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the night before Jesus is crucified.  In the garden Jesus withdraws from the disciples, but before doing so asks that they keep watch and pray. When Jesus himself goes off to pray, the disciples fall asleep. Upon returning Jesus rebukes the sleeping disciples, saying to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” (Luke 22:46)
 
In saying this, Jesus is crystal clear: By sleeping the disciples are not watching and praying with Him.  And in so doing they are not only being faithless, they miss the presence of God.  In the case of Gethsemane, they miss the appearance of an angel who gives Jesus strength.  And on the mountaintop their drowsiness puts them at risk of missing God’s presence at the Transfiguration.
Sleepiness not only puts at risk of being unfaithful, but of missing all the good stuff; the epiphanies of God’s presence.
 
I think when it comes to our journey of faith you and I tend to be sleepy disciples.
To say this isn’t to scold or engage in guilt or shaming.  That never results in any positive good, especially when it comes to our faith lives.  It is rather to acknowledge our humanity and our human imperfections and frailties.  None of us is perfect. None of us are without our weaknesses.  If any of you believe you are perfect and devoid of weakness, that actually is an indication of your imperfection and weakness! You’re clearly not good at introspection and self-awareness.
 
Jesus’s disciples were full of imperfections and weaknesses: they were sleepy, grumpy, dopey.   Yet Jesus never gave up on them, he always loved them, and he never faltered in trying to awaken their sleeping minds, to making them less dopey, to turn them into Doc. He does the same for us.
If we can gently acknowledge our sleepiness in our faith lives we can use that as a learning moment, becoming aware, more attuned, staying wakeful to God’s presence. Our sleepiness – as well as our dopiness - can become object lessons – there’s a purpose to them - and help transform us, if we are willing to be reflective about them.
This is a good thing, because in life we miss so much when our minds are asleep. And by asleep I don’t mean deep REM sleep, I mean when we are unaware, obtuse to the presence of God, which surrounds us all the time.  And as faithful followers of Jesus we don’t want that to happen.
What keeps us asleep?
Prejudice keeps our minds asleep, or put another way, our minds shut. The reality of God’s radical and inclusive Reign that proclaims the intrinsic holiness of each person always comes knocking on the doors of our minds, but we often chose to stay asleep. We will not awaken to answer that knock.  In so doing we miss the glory of the presence of God in all people.
 
Lethargy keeps us asleep. When we are lethargic we refuse to engage in the struggle of critical thought on life’s most urgent issues.  We default to allowing social media or our political ideologies to think for us. We get so lethargic we can’t even deal with our own questions and doubts, but rather drown them out by allowing our addictions and enslavement to devise screens to distract us. To be lethargic is not only to be asleep, it is to remain intentionally dopey.  Plato said that the unexamined life is not worth living.  I’d say the unexamined life  is also one of perpetual sleepiness. Lethargy causes us to miss the presence of God that is revealed when we engage in critical thought, in thought-provoking conversation, in the exchange of new and challenging ideas. God is present in those processes. We miss that if we are resistant, asleep to them.
Busyness can keep us asleep.  When we are focused on being busy we fill our lives with endless projects, work commitments, and activities. We become convinced that our self-worth is derived from our heavy workloads, our full agendas, our lists, our post-it notes, our Type A driven ambitions for fulfillment, success, power, status, wealth. Busyness keeps us from witnessing God’s glory in the created order, in the companionship of friends, family and colleagues, preventing us from  just being with ourselves, giving ourselves space, time and quiet, thereby allowing God’s presence to shine in our midst.
Where do you need to be aware of how you are asleep, missing the glory of God in your life? 
Since we have a bit of a theme of seven in this sermon, let me suggest looking at where any of the sins of pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth are keeping you asleep.  They are a good place to start.
What can awaken us? 
We embark on the season of Lent in a few days.  On Ash Wednesday the priest invites the congregation to the observance of a holy Lent, “by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.”  This invitation is one that invites us to become aware of and to examine all the ways we are asleep to the presence of God.  It is to be watchful and faithful. It is to become fully awake, fully alive.  So, this morning I’m giving you a three day head start on reflecting on where you’re asleep and how you can wake up.
Let this Lent be one where you focus on waking from your slumber and seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It’s a glorious sight! It’s worth all the effort you put into it.
I leave you with this poem by Mary Oliver titled Gethsemane.
 
The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.
The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.
Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did,
maybe the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move, maybe
the lake far away, where once he walked as on a
blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.
Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be a part of the story.
 
Amen.

The Rev. Peter Faass, Rector
Genesis 45:3-11, 15; Luke 6:27-38
​
​“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” 
Whenever I proclaim these words of Jesus I can almost hear an audible gasp from the congregation.  “Seriously?” we think. Love my enemies? (of which there seems to be no shortage these days.)  Do good to those who hate me? Bless those who curse me? Pray for my abusers? Good heavens, Jesus, how much time do you think there is in a day?
 
Our conditioned response to dealing with our enemies, and those who hate, abuse, or curse us, is to desire revenge. To pray for an opportunity for retribution. To conjure up ways to inflict great harm on them.  We desire these things because when they happen we can engage in schadenfreude, which is the experience of pleasure, joy, and self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, pain, humiliation, or even death of a person we are at enmity with.
 
Be honest.  How many of us feel a desire to pray for or bless anti-vaxxers who contract COVID, become hospitalized, or even die?  I’d say we’re more likely to enjoy engaging in schadenfreude at their circumstances over offering love and compassion.
We are a schadenfreude people.
Jesus knows this, which is why he tells us to do all these counter-intuitive things when it comes to dealing with our enemies. He wants to heal us of our schadenfreude.
 
This passage in Luke’s Gospel is part of the Sermon on the Plain, which is similar to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, except Jesus comes down from the mountain to the plain to deliver it. It is an exposition on what the qualities of God’s Reign are and what we must do to live in that Reign. Jesus is here to inaugurate this new world of God, which, to say the least, is a very different world from the one we humans have devised.  This world is one that levels the playing field for all people – ergo the symbolism of being delivered on the plain. It is a world that desires the health and well-being of all people.  This world requires a different ethos than what now exists.  To achieve this world, we are to forsake malice, hatred, retribution, vengeance, and the twisted delights of schadenfreude if we are to live as God desires us to live . . . to live as God lives.
 
Now do not misinterpret what is being asked of us.  Jesus is not asking us to approve of evil, malicious, or cruel behavior.  Jesus is not saying that those who engage in hurtful and harmful conduct are not to be held accountable. Jesus is not saying to suck it up and just deal with abuse.  To do any of these things is antithetical to the whole message of leveling the playing field, where the health and well-being of all people are paramount. Health and well-being are equally desired for us as well as for others.
We are not to be passive doormats, quietly enduring the abuse, malice, and hatred of others. When you let someone walk over you, there’s no mutual respect, compassion, and love in that. It is not the way of God’s new world.
 
“Do to others as you would have them do to you” is a reciprocal formula.  It requires mutuality, of respecting the dignity of every human being.
 
What Jesus is asking us to do is to always keep the best interests of the wrongdoer in mind.  To not forget that despite how disagreeable or odious or hateful another person is, that they are still made in the image of a loving God . . . even though their brokenness and the presence of evil in them may prevent them from behaving that way.
This idea of keeping the others best interest in mind is rooted in the Greek word used for love in the opening phrase “Love your enemies.”  There are three words for love in Greek: eros, which is erotic love. Philos, which is love for our nearest and dearest. And agape love, which is a love that engages in active feelings and behaviors of benevolence toward another person, regardless of what they do, of who they are. Agape love never allows us to desire anything but the highest good for another person. We can’t love our enemies as we erotically love a partner, or engage in philos with them as we do toward our family and friends.  To do so would be unnatural, wrong, and more than a little perverse.
But what we can do – what Jesus calls us to do – is no matter what another person does to us – the insults, ill-treatment, injuries – is to always focus on seeking nothing but their highest good. Agape love is an act of will-power to do good, so that love can prevail over evil.   
This is not an easy love to offer.  It is deliberate.  It is counter-intuitive.  It requires us to set aside our preconceived notions about what is just and unjust. It is a visceral force of will that requires all our heart, strength, and mind to live as God calls us to live.  But it is exactly what we followers of Jesus are to do. There is no alternate way or easier option that has been offered us.
This morning we get a snippet of the Joseph story in our Genesis reading. Because Joseph was an obnoxious and pretentious little kid, his brothers didn’t like him, so they sold him into slavery.  They feigned his death to their father Jacob by pretending Joseph was killed by a wild beast.  Long story, made short, Joseph eventually is redeemed from slavery in Egypt and becomes the second most powerful man there after Pharaoh. Years later a famine in Israel compels Jacob to send ten of his sons to Egypt to buy grain.  They end up dealing with Joseph, who they do not recognize, but who knows who they are.  
If anyone had the inclination to desire vengeance, be hateful, and engage in schadenfreude, delighting in seeing his brothers suffer, it was Joseph.  He held all the power over his brothers and he could do with them what he willed. Even kill them. But he didn’t.
When Joseph reveals his identity to his brothers, the text tells us, “his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.”  That may be a bit of an understatement.  I’d say they were terrified realizing that after what they had done to their brother, they were in for some serious retribution, now that he had them in his grip.
But Joseph doesn’t engage in vengeance or malice. Rather he wills himself to engage in agape love. He is benevolent toward his brothers and he keeps their highest good in mind. 
Joseph then engages in some philo love, after-all they are his family. We are told, “he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.” 
Joseph diffuses any thoughts of hatred, malice, and vengeance. He keeps his brothers higher good in mind, and in so doing he tends to his own higher good as well.
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”
We live in fractious times.  Enemies abound. There’s no shortage of hate, cursing, and abuse to go around. Judgment and condemnation abound.  Forgiveness is in short supply.  None of this reflects the new world of God.
 
Our response to this sad state of affairs is exactly what Jesus admonished us over in the scripture. We focus only on loving those who love us.  We are good only to those who are good to us.  We balkanize ourselves by drawing hard and fast boundaries in our lives, only associating with people who are like us. We do this by segregating ourselves into red and blue, Black and White, rich and less rich, educated and less educated, straight and gay, one kind of church over another. This way we can keep our enemies at bay, making sure they are not our neighbor in any way, whether by physical habitation or association.  None of this reflects the new world of God, either.
 
Think about it: to love our enemies is to understand that everyone is our neighbor. The command to love our enemies calls us to replace the concern about the limits we have placed on who it’s acceptable to associate with and who’s not, with a concern for inclusiveness, for keeping our real and perceived enemies highest good as our main concern, with leveling our lives so we are all on the same plain.   Loving our enemies is to engage in a willful act of love so that the Reign of God may be fulfilled, both for us and prayerfully, for those who have harmed us.
Ultimately it is to understand that if we want to live in a world that has the qualities of God’s Realm, we must treat everyone in Realm-like ways. It can be no other.
Love. Do good. Bless. Pray. Do not judge. Forgive. Love one another as you have been loved.  Each time we do these things the plain gets more level. Brokenness becomes healed. Relationships are healed. Enmity diffused. Schadenfreude set aside. And the Reign of God draws ever closer.   Amen.

Spoiler alert – I have to tell you that I watched the Diocese of New York’s Absalom Jones service yesterday with Presiding Bishop Curry as homilist and he was on fire as usual.  Hopefully not many of you saw that service, not that I stole much from him mind you. Anytime I get to hear him preach is a blessing, but given that I am today’s homilist I feel it is also a curse.  I think I was also the homilist the Sunday following the 2017 Diocese of Ohio Convention when he was also the preacher. Now as then I just want to sit down in a corner and shut up. But that is not an option, so here we go.
 
When I read the lessons for the day they made me reflect on all the homilies I’ve written that deal with love and probably in one way or another that’s every homily I’ve ever written. One of my favorites was entitled “What’s Love Got to Do with it?” (And yes, that is a song and a movie title.)  And though love is once again at the heart of my homily today so is fear and how that fear separates us from each other and from God. It’s about how we allow fear to enslave and blind us to His love. In 2010 I was the homilist for the Diocesan Absalom Jones Service on the topic “Are we there yet?” No worries as I am not reprising that homily either although some said it was a good one. The answer now as then is no we are nowhere near the end of our freedom journey. In 2010 we were two years into Obama’s first term and though I was under no illusions that the race question had been resolved I think my tone and vision for the future was hopeful that we were on the right track on that journey. But as we stand here in February 2022 it feels as if our forward journey on the freedom road has been interrupted and maybe we have taken a few steps or even leaps and bounds backwards.
 
It’s safe to say that we are countless miles and more than 220 years from that day in 1780’s Philadelphia when a group of free blacks refused to be relegated to the slave gallery of St. George's Methodist Church, a gallery which they helped to build. The people of St. George's clearly took a misstep in the journey of faith that day. Somehow, they missed Christ’s call to love unconditionally and to welcome the other as self. Maybe they hadn’t gotten to that point in the lectionary when John 15:12-15 was to be read or if they read it, perhaps they failed to understand its meaning.  Whatever the case, it is clear that love was absent in that singular act of expelling a people from God’s house, a house that love built, because of the color of their skin. Though Christ has set us free from sin and people of African descent were freed from slavery more than 150 years ago the color of skin still enslaves us all.
 
The extraordinary Miss Lee was fond of reminding me and anyone else who would listen that if we don’t know our history, we will be doomed to repeat it. In last Sunday’s paper Dr. Lonnie Bunch III, Director of the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History, amplified her comment when he said, “You can tell a great deal about a people, about a nation by what they deem important enough to remember, what they build monuments to celebrate, ….” Dr. Bunch made this comment in reaction to a letter writer’s assertion that we didn’t need the Museum as America’s greatest strength is its ability to forget. The recent controversies about confederate monuments, sports team names, who gets to vote or what should or should not be taught about race and the history of our country’s treatment of the other is a clear indication that we are fearful of remembering, fearful of having those uncomfortable conversations because there are truths we don’t want to hear or face. If we can deny it happened or relegate it to a past that no longer matters, then we don’t have to deal with the consequences.  But the reality is though we may want to forget we must learn what that dark past has to teach us, for until we heal the wounds that the blow made, it will continue to fester.  Legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead (and yes, I had to go there) said she can tell a society is civilize when she sees evidence of broken and then healed bones, a telltale sign that people look out for each other. 
 
Unfortunately, I sometimes question how civilized we are as we continue to have to navigate around that unhealed wound, to live in a present shadowed by the past that some seek to forget. To know, however unreasonable it is, that some of us if we step out of our place as defined by others make them uncomfortable or fearful. A fear that allows the people of St. George’s to deny the humanity of its black parishioners.  A fear that beats and kills a 14-year-old Emmett Till.  A fear that kneels on the neck of George Floyd as he takes his last breath. A fear that chases down and shots a young man for jogging while black in the wrong neighborhood. Failing to heed Paul’s admonition this fear also enslaves and oppresses those who fear as much as it enslaves the other, for that fear warps communal life and limits societal potential. It is a fear that sees the other as less than self and that ultimately belittles and weakens us all as a nation and as the people of God.
 
But on this day when we celebrate the life of Absalom Jones, the lesson we must learn is that we need each other because we are better together for when we all do our part we move forward as one. Today’s lessons remind us that our purpose is and must be greater than our fears. Our purpose is to love and love has the power to change what’s possible.  Unlike that letter writer I believe that our greatest strength is ‘we the people’, a people willing to be honest about who we are. A people who, remember and celebrate our shared humanity. A people willing to face our shared history and heal the wounds. We have to stop standing in the shadow of fear and step out into the light and bask in the love that is Jesus Christ. We the people must take the message of justice and equality seriously and speak the prophetic word of love, for God wants all the oppressed to go free. 
 
Today in Luke we are reminded again as people of the book, about the power of the word, but not just the written word – but the power of the word made flesh in Jesus Christ and that word is love. We know how easily words can be shaped to many purposes and interpreted in many ways as our nation’s troubled history of race, class and gender demonstrate.  Over the centuries even the words of the Good Book have been used and interpreted in many ways both good and bad. But Christ, love made flesh, reminds us that we do not stand by ourselves alone.  Christ stands with us as he stood with that great cloud of witnesses including the likes of Absalom Jones and the free blacks of St. George's and Sojourner Truth and Fredrick Douglass and Mamie Till and Martin Luther King, Jr and Pauli Murray and Byrdie Lee who turned and stood in the breach to confront evil.  
 
How you and I in this day and age engage and interpret that word made flesh is both the challenge and opportunity ‘we the people’ face as we struggle daily to live in covenant with God and make real in King’s words the beloved community.  We are a people of the book of living words and our story continues to be written in its pages for it is a story of our unfinished business. We have become way too comfortable living in the gaps – the gap between the way God wants us to live and the way we are living, and the gap between the written and the living word that is love. To be human is to care about other humans simply for their humanity, but to be Christian is to go a step further and welcome the other as self. ‘We the People’ are the body of Christ and must be the embodiment of love in the world.  The word made manifest in the rituals that we perform remind us of who we are, whose we are and who we are called to be in the world.  We must not only keep the faith but activate the faith. The living word of love must change us so that we may change the world. When the labor of our hands feeds the hungry or clothes the homeless there is the living word. When ‘we the people’ walk for justice, proclaim liberty to all the captives and tear down the walls of division there is Christ.  On this feast day let’s keep our eyes on the prize and don’t give up, but turn and engage in the work of building the beloved community and redeeming the world by loving others as God loves us.  Amen.

Genesis 2:15-17 & 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11
The Rev. Rachel Hackenberg
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Sometimes in the morning at Starbucks, I cross paths with a group of regulars I’ve gotten to know over the years. Occasionally I sit and chat, although inevitably if I do, the group shifts their conversation to the topic of religion. The most pressing questions, asked in various ways, are:

1. whether there is a God, and
2. whether human behavior leads us to believe that God is good.

In all the conversations I’ve been part of in that Starbucks group, the existence of evil is never debated. The question of human fallacy is never raised. The problem of suffering is never argued. The group inherently accepts those things to be true. Call them sins or trespasses, evil or the devil, a serpent or temptation, human depravity or mob mentality—we have little doubt that there is harm in the world.
 
But “Is there God?” and “Does human behavior point to a God that is good?” These questions evoke a deep existential worry.
 
There are a variety of answers to those questions. Across our lifetimes we cling to different answers in order to make sense of the world and to find our peace within it. The scripture readings today offer one possible answer, namely, “It’s not God’s fault.” To that deep longing “Does human behavior reveal a God that is good,” today’s texts reply, “Look, let’s not pin human behavior on God.” Like children on a school playground trying to explain to the teacher how the kickball ended up in a tree, Genesis says, “It’s Eve’s fault.” Romans says, “It’s Adam’s fault.” Matthew says, “It’s the devil’s fault.” And the psalm says, “Look, God only wants to take responsibility for scoring a homerun.”
 
What do we make of human fallacy, of our capacity for violence, of our willful ignorance, of our hoarding of grace? What does it all say about God? Especially during Lent, this season in which we might choose to practice spiritual disciplines that focus on our shortcomings, what is our expectation for how God’s goodness will be revealed?
 
Because people are looking for God’s goodness. People are wondering whether there is such a thing. Folks are far less worried about who is to blame for evil and far more anxious about whether goodness can overcome it—goodness not for just one person, but for all of us. Where is the goodness that can save all creation from “the rush of mighty waters” (32:6)? Where is the goodness of fruit that can feed all people in these days of greed? Where are the angels to catch all people being thrown down, evicted due to poverty, displaced due to violence?
 
What is the purpose if God’s good mercy covers your sins and only your sins like a single fig leaf, but leaves others naked and cold?
 
The devil tells Jesus to prioritize himself:
“If you are hungry,” the devil says to Jesus, “then make food for yourself from these stones.”
 
“And if you are worthy,” the devil tempts, “let the angels rush to your rescue.”
 
“And if you deserve everything,” the devil cajoles, “then claim it all as your own.”
 
The devil sounds like a marketing campaign: You deserve it. You’re worth it. Just do it. Just get yours. Just get them all. Get the best. Get it now, get it fast. Get happiness. Open happiness. Open your dream. Live your dream. Protect your dream. Watch out for anyone who has a dream of their own. Don’t let them take your dream. Don’t share your dream. Don’t share your well-being.
 
Don’t worry about God’s goodness for others, the devil suggests. Save yourself. Get yours first. Get your bread so you won’t be hungry; get your rescue so you won’t be injured; claim your space so you won’t be crowded or overshadowed.”
 
To which Jesus replies, “No one can worship their own needs and worship God. Do not even test God to put God’s well-being over the well-being of creation. For no one lives by bread alone, but by the wisdom of God.” No one lives by bread alone—which is perfectly fine with me, because I love bread but I love a lot of other food too.
 
But perhaps Jesus isn’t saying, “No one can live only on bread.” Perhaps he’s saying, “No one can live on bread all by themselves. No one can live on bread all by their lonesome. We aren’t just sustained by bread; we are sustained by relationship—with God, with one another, with all the world, with all creation. Through those relationships, God’s wisdom is understood.”  
 
No one has life alone—whether they’re eating bread or any other food. The life of one impacts the well-being of all. Likewise the death of one impacts the breath of all. The sin of one ripples across the livelihood of all. Whether that’s Adam or you or me or Jesus. No one lives alone; every life impacts and is impacted by another life.
 
No one can eat alone. No one can be rescued alone. No one can claim space and say, “This is my own.”
 
Not even our Lenten disciplines are meant only for our own good. What you discern in prayer impacts me. Whether or not I give up caffeine for Lent impacts you.
 
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”
 
We are interrelated, even in our very personal Lenten disciplines. We cannot live by bread all by ourselves. We cannot mature in the wisdom of God all by ourselves. We cannot be saved all by ourselves.
 
In the Garden of Eden, the serpent cajoles, “The fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden won’t kill you. It will give you the wisdom to recognize good and evil.” We should realize, of course, that Eve and Adam could already recognize good—the goodness of fruit to eat, the goodness of animals to name, the goodness of growth in the garden. The serpent entices them with the promise that they’ll also be able to recognize evil once they eat the fruit.
 
And now we can’t unsee it. Like Adam and Eve, we continue to seek out fig leaves in order to hide from one another, to avoid being seen, to avoid being vulnerable, to pretend that evil is someone else’s fault. We don fig leaves. We try to eat our bread alone. We hope to secure our own salvation.
 
But in so doing, we haven’t limited evil—we haven’t reduced the evil that’s being done or reduced how much evil we notice. In hiding from one another behind fig leaves, in avoiding one another by eating bread alone, we’ve only reduced how much goodness we notice and how much goodness we create and share when we’re together.
 
“Happy are those”--plural, together.
 
“Steadfast love surrounds those”--plural, together.
 
People are look for God’s goodness. If we stick together, we just might find it.
 
Amen.