Fear and Love

Sermon for the 4th Sunday after the Epiphany (Year B -RCL): Fear and Love

-My sisters and brothers, we are taught in the scriptures that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and that those who act in accordance with this fear have a good understanding. Holy and awesome is the name of the Lord. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that our God is a consuming fire. As the Almighty Creator of all things seen and unseen, it is right to serve our God with fear.

-But I ask you this: how do we reconcile this with our love for the Lord? You know the first commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

-How do we then both love and fear God at the same time? Are these competing commitments that cancel each other out? Let me assure you that this is not the case.
-In fact, the truth is, my friends, that love and fear must always grow together in the life of a Christian.
-There is no true love that is not grounded in fear, and there is no godly fear which is not fulfilled in love.

-The summer after I finished seminary, we went to live with Erin’s grandfather in the mountains of North Carolina. Her grandparents were pioneering Southern Baptist missionaries in Nigeria, Africa, and they had come back to North Carolina to retire. Erin adored her grandparents, and for good reason. They were amazing people – the kind of folks that are rarely seen in this world today. Their love for others was tremendous, and their generosity was known by all around them. But they were good Baptists, and drinking was one thing that they knew to be wrong. (By the way, you do know why…)
-Well, while we were living there that summer, I found a job as a finish carpenter in a new housing development – hanging doors and installing trim. And after a hot day of working with my hands, you know that all I wanted was to sit and enjoy a cold beer. I am a straight-up, blue collar Jersey boy, and I was raised to drink some beer. But I couldn’t do it.
- I pleaded with Erin. I said, “Maybe I could hide a six-pack in the back of the fridge that was in the garage?!” But it wasn’t going to be. Ice tea would have to do. Neither Erin nor I agreed with him. We did not believe that alcohol was absolutely bad. But out of her deep love and respect for her grandfather, Erin would not do anything that would sow seeds of confusion and misunderstanding in her grandfather’s mind.

-This is the same principle that Paul is teaching in his letter to the Corinthians. The context here is very different – eating meals in temples dedicated to greek gods.
-But the principle is the same. The church is to be the community which embodies the love of God. And if the members truly love one another, then they will be careful not to harm each other. Even if one member does not believe that the meat sacrificed to idols is polluted, out of love and respect for the others, that one is to abstain in order not to sow seeds of confusion and doubt.

-Here we see a practical example of how godly love and fear are so closely intertwined.

-True love and fear are always intertwined. You cannot truly love another if you do not also fear the other. This is true in any relationship in our lives.

-To love someone means to cherish them, to honor them. If I truly love my wife, Erin, then I hold her in a sacred kind of awe, careful never to do anything that might cause her harm.
-If I simply say that I love her, but then if in my actions I consistently hurt her – emotionally or physically – then I am a liar and the truth is not in me.
-True love for her causes me to treat her as if she were the most precious, fragile treasure in my world. This is the kind of fear which is intertwined with love.
-It is not that I am afraid of her – though sometimes I am, because she’s a hot headed Irish girl! But that’s not what I mean here! I mean that I fear the great harm that I, in my blindness and my foolishness, could easily cause her if I am careless.

-For those of you with children, this is like the feelings that are brought about by the birth of your first child. I don’t know about you, but for us, the birth of our first-born son gave us an entirely new understanding of what love really is.
-We never knew that we could love someone so dearly, and at the same time be so terribly afraid all of the time.
-For me, before we had children, my emotions could range about this far (hands held up and close together). But after our children came, my emotions are stretched out about this far (hands far out)!
-Now, after the birth of our children, the depth of my love is so much greater now, but so also is my capacity for fear! The more we love another, the more we fear the harm that could befall them. True love and godly fear always grow together in the heart of a Christian.

-In his book, The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis has an amazing passage in which he describes the kind of awe and respect that we rightly should have toward others if we see clearly.

"It is a serious thing," wrote Lewis, "to live in a society of possible gods and
goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk
to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly
tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if
at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each
other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these
overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to
them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships,
all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have
never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these
are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals
whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or
[else] everlasting splendours.”

-When we see clearly with the light of Christ, we stand in awe of the people around us. There are no ordinary people, and no ordinary days.

-All of this is, of course, even more true when it comes to our relationship with God!
-God is to loved and adored. We love God because God first loved us. Forgiveness, healing power, mercy, grace are freely given to us through Jesus Christ.
-But God is also to be feared. Not the groveling kind of fear where we are afraid to be struck by lightning if we happen to spill the blessed wine of the sacrament. God is not capricious in this way, smacking us when we mess up.
-No, it is the loving fear of reverence and awe that develops in our heart when we truly encounter the living God.
-In America, we tend to act pretty chummy toward Jesus, like he’s our best friend, our buddy who hangs out with us at the ball game.
-And in a way, this kind of familiarity is good, I suppose.
-But we tend to forget that this is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. This is the one who speaks with authority, the One who went around tearing evil spirits out of people.
-Those around him were amazed and I can promise you that typically he made them feel very, very uncomfortable.
-We would do well to recover a bit of reverent fear and awe when we speak or think about God. During the Great Thanksgiving, when we sing the Sanctus, it is ancient custom to bow in recognition that we are joining in with something that is way over our heads. The heavenly beings, and all the saints, in some mysterious and profound way are living now in the presence of our Creator and singing this song of praise endlessly. It is our privilege to be allowed to join in for a brief moment.

-By the grace of God, may we be strengthened to grow in true love and godly fear, and may these be expressed in all of our relationships to those around us, and most especially in our relationship with the almighty and everlasting Lord. Amen.

Sermon for the 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany

The Present Form of This World

-Well, it is still early in the season of Epiphany – there are many weeks still before the start of Lent – and yet today the Lectionary calls us to stop and reflect together upon the call to repentance.

-Here in the Gospel of Mark, we read of our Lord’s first words after beginning his public ministry: “Repent, and believe in the good news.”
-I hope that none of us miss the significance of this. We can say with confidence that repentance is the first word of Jesus to this world.

-This was not a new message, of course. We see Jonah preaching a similar message to the people of Nineveh: repent or else destruction is coming upon you.

-But, within the kingdom of God, repentance is a bit different than the actions taken by the Ninevites. For those of us in Christ, repentance is not a one time affair. It is not even a once a year activity that we only contemplate during Lent.

-For those of us baptized into Christ, repentance is our way of life. Repentance is the door to a new life and also the path to a new life. Repentance is the gateway into a new land of wholeness and abundance, but it is also the way deeper into this land. It is the Christian’s way of life.

-Well, that is my claim, and this is the primary matter I believe that we desperately need to consider together this morning. But I am sure all of you right now are saying to yourselves, “Oh great. Repentance, huh? Gee, this sounds like fun.”

-But it is fun! Really! And it is exciting. And it is crucially important. Let me show you what I mean.

-We human beings desperately need to change. This human society in which we live is very, very messed up. God has given to us free will, and we have used this to sow destruction throughout every part of the earth.
-True, there is beauty everywhere, to be sure, but the amount of pain and suffering in this world is immense, truly unbearable if we try to hold it all. I will spare us a list of any relevant statistics.

-We need to change, and we all know it. In fact, the call to change echoes everywhere today.
-“Change we can believe in.” “The change we need.” Sound familiar? Talk about change is everywhere in our society today, starting from the top, but what does it mean?

-Now, I did not vote for Barack Obama, but I do recognize and applaud his ability to energize people and to give many a new sense of hope and optimism. The inauguration this past week was amazing – just the raw sense of energy and emotion and joy and anticipation.

-But the problem is this: real change comes from within, and it is slow to come. Passing new laws, writing new executive orders, cutting federal checks – none of this will really change anything. All action comes from within. “You will know a tree by its fruits.” Our actions are the fruits of our hearts and they faithfully reveal what is inside.

-Our family likes to watch movies together. I remember once two years ago when we all decided one night to watch a movie together and we watched An Inconvenient Truth – the movie by Al Gore which presents the looming crisis of global warming in stark relief. It is startling to see all of this information put together, even for someone like myself who has studied environmental issues for my entire adult life. But for our oldest children – who were 11 and 9 years old at the time – it struck a deep chord. They immediately wanted to spring into action and began talking about what we can do to reduce our carbon footprint. “Angus,” our daughter Se` said to her older brother, “maybe we can spend less time watching TV and playing X-Box, and maybe we can play outside more!”
-It was heartwarming to see this kind of response, but little does she yet know of human nature.
-She does not yet understand that human beings, left to their own meager resources, are rarely able to transform themselves. Her resolve to change lasted only a week or so. Most New Year’s resolutions for 2009 won’t make it out of January still in force!

-So how then do we change? How do we effect real and lasting change within ourselves or within our communities?

-The self-help gurus of our culture tell me to look inside and to recognize how powerful I truly am. But it’s just not there.
-No, I need another source of power, another source of energy outside of myself in order truly to become myself, truly to become the man who God has intended me to be.
-You see, from all eternity, God has designed me to be a certain kind of man. Try as I may now to fit into that design, I am not able. I try to change my life to be that Christ-like model, and I fail. I try and I fail. I try and I fail.
-I need something else! I need a source of power, a source of energy outside of myself to enable me to become who God has intended me to be!

-When our Lord began his ministry, he preached this message: “The kingdom of God has come near.” The kingdom of God is near, right at hand, surrounding us at all times and in all places. In that kingdom, the very life power of God is made available to us through our Lord Jesus Christ.

-Power – dynamos in the Greek – from which we get the word dynamic. Dynamic energy, power, force, vigor – this is the message of the Gospel.
-Kingdom power right here and now available to us through the means of grace.

-This then is the path of repentance for us. It is not a one time affair. It is a continual way of life in which we turn away from the present form of this world, our weak and fallen selves, and become empowered by the grace of God to claim our true selves.

-The apostle Paul taught us that “the present form of this world is passing away,” and that’s a good thing because it is weak. Instead, we continually turn to the kingdom of God and receive power, strength, energy to be transformed daily more and more into the fullness of Christ.

-The temptation is to be fooled by the present form of this world. All is not as it seems, and every single day we are being sold a bill of goods, a stack of lies about how to be happy and whole. All we need is a flatter tummy, or whiter teeth, or smarter investments, or a better car, or hair with less gray in it. The list is endless.

-But thanks be to God that we can hear a different voice, the call of the Holy Spirit to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Thanks be to God that grace and power are available to us when we repent and believe in the good news. Amen.

The Church of the Presidents

It'amazing that our Episcopal Church, so statistically small, is so influential because of the course of history. This morning, before Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th President, he and his family joined in worship using the Book of Common Prayer, at St. John's Church in Lafayette Square. That's amazing! We have a great tradition to uphold, thanks be to God.

HERE I AM- Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany

Can you think of a time when you heard the voice of God clearly calling out to you? Like Samuel, perhaps you were asleep when the Voice called. Perhaps, like Samuel, you misunderstood the call. You thought that the Voice came from someone else, someone close by and near to you.

What about on the flip side of the coin? Can you think of a time when you felt that God was silent in your life? This, of course, is the context in which we hear of the calling of Samuel as a young boy. “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread” (1 Sam. 3:1). The people were not hearing God speak to them in those days. Was God truly silent? Or had they forgotten how to listen?
Is there a time in your life when God seemed to disappear from your life? Do you think it was due to God’s failure to act or to speak? Or was it due to your lack of perception?

When Nathanael met Jesus, our Lord explained that he knew Nathanael – he knew what kind of person he was, and in fact he knew where Nathanael had been even before they met! Nathanael was shocked! “Where did you get to know me?” What a great question! Where did you get to know me, O God? From our side of history, we can laugh at Nathanael’s question. “Of course this man knows you! This is God incarnate, you fool!” Nathanael could not have known this. We know it to be true, but do we believe it. Do we truly and deeply believe that God knows us? Listen to these words from Curtis Almquist that boldly declare this truth:

“God loves you. Who you are, what you are, how you've gotten to be where you are: God know and loves all that. God has this passionate love affair going on with you. God has created you as you are, cherishes you, and longs for your companionship. God has plans for a relationship with you that lasts forever and that grows in intimacy over time. It's like an eternal infatuation. When you're sleeping, God is dreaming up ways to be with you. When you're working or walking or weeping, God is catching up with you in the wind across your face, in the singing of a bird, in the free fall of laughter, in the soothing touch of a friend. You are the apple of God's eye. “ —Unwrapping the Gifts: The Twelve Days of Christmas, by Curtis G. Almquist.

God knows us – even better than we know ourselves! “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” And God speaks to us, calls us by name. But we desperately need to learn the art of listening. Bruce Main, the director of Urban Promise in Camden, a ministry to children in the inner city, tells of a time when he came home from work and greeted his wife, Pam, in their kitchen. Bruce was tired from a long day of work and not really paying attention as Pam launched into a story about her day. Pam was explaining that she took flowers over to their friend Kay who recently learned that her husband had an aggressive brain tumor and would not live long. Unfortunately, Kay was not at home. Pam met Kay’s son-in-law and Pam learned that Kay was spending most of her time at the hospital every day with her ailing husband. So Pam left the flowers and began to drive home, but she had a nagging feeling that she was supposed to do something. She felt a deep compulsion that she was supposed to deliver this message to Kay, “God hears you.”

That’s it? Bruce thought, as he listened to her story, now a bit perplexed. That’s the divine message for Kay, “God hears you”? Isn’t that a simple platitude, a really basic idea, not very profound? And was Pam supposed to spend the rest of her day driving into Philadelphia, struggling to find a parking space, hoping to find Kay in the hospital, all in the hopes of giving her this simple message, “God hears you”?
Well, Pam did it. She made it into the hospital, stopping on the way to pick up some sandwiches and juice for Kay. Kay, of course, was a bit surprised to see her, but pleased also. And after a few minutes of small talk, Kay asked Pam why she had come all the way into the city to see her.
“I have a message for you, Kay,” she explained. “What I’m about to tell you may sound a little strange – maybe absurd! … God hears you!” “That’s it?” Kay asked. Pam nodded, and then it began. Kay broke down in tears and cried. Through her tears, she explained that her first husband had died of cancer years earlier. And she had prayed and asked God to please spare her from that kind of pain again. And when she married Jack, her second husband, she had again prayed specifically to ask that she die first before Jack if he were to become ill. But now here she was, with Jack close to death, Kay had given up on God. Kay had given up on prayer. But here Pam came to her –there, at that moment - with a message of hope!

Pam listened to the Voice of the Holy Spirit. God called to her, and she listened. God spoke, and she obeyed. And something important and meaningful was done there in the name of Jesus. (See Bruce Main, Spotting The Sacred: Noticing God in the Most Unlikely Places, 2006, by Baker Books.)

Did you hear that prayer –the Collect – which was appointed for our gathering this morning? “Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory…”
Well, my friends, that prayer is about us. By the grace of God alone, we are his people, chosen and selected to be instruments of grace and blessing to the world around us. But to do this, we must be willing to listen, and to act with courage when the Voice speaks to us. It may only be a hunch, a feeling deep inside. But deep inside is where the Holy Spirit dwells! Have no fear, my friends. God knows how to speak to us, how to communicate in a way that we can hear. But we must listen and follow. When we do, we glorify God in our body. When we do, then we truly go forth into the world with “strength and courage to love and serve [our Lord] with gladness and singleness of heart.” So may it always be among us who share bread together at this, the Lord’s table. Amen.

SAVE THE GEESE !

Lots of talk about getting rid of Canada geese as they cause problems for airplanes such as what happened yesterday in NYC. Oh brother, those geese have been flying these airways for thousands of years before we showed up. What a great example of the human hubris! Just get a bulldozer and demo anything that stands in our way! Perhaps God takes joy in flocks of Canada Geese flying in formation. Perhaps...not everything revolves around us. What a thought.

D-Mac is victorious over the G-men !

What a beautiful day it is when the Eagles beat the Giants, especially when it means a trip to the NFC Championship game! The Cardinals don't have a prayer. Good days are ahead for the City of Brotherly Love!

CertaPro Painters 2009 Conference

Erin and I are in Puerto Rico for the international CertaPro Painters annual conference. There are approx. 320 franchisees, corporate staff and vendors meeting together. It is mostly business planning sessions and brainstorming together about how to survive the recession, however the setting is lovely and there is a bit of time for fun. We are flying back to Philly on Saturday night, hopefully not into a snowstorm!

Christmas in New Hampshire

Here are a few photos of our cabin in New Hampshire. We were blessed to spend a white Christmas there as a family (the 2 dogs and the cat also!). It is pretty close to heaven on earth...

Football and Puerto Rico

FLY, EAGLES, FLY ! Loving the Eagles victory right now. Brian Dawkins is a beast! And Westbrook is simply amazing. How many games has he won for us?

Tuesday morning, Erin and I fly to Puerto Rico for the annual CertaPro Conference. There will be a lot of meetings and business planning sessions, so no one should think this is some kind of vacation. Though I am sure we will get in a few walks on the beach while we're there!