Sermons

Merry Christmas, everyone! Yes, we are still in the season of Christmas, which lasts for 12 days and only ends on Epiphany, the feast when we celebrate the visit of the wise men to the child Jesus. That means Epiphany is always on January 6th, and this year we will have a special service on Tuesday at 7 pm to celebrate! Epiphany doesn't often fall on a Sunday, so we normally roll the story of the wise men into the Sunday before or after January 6th. As you know, Christmas is always December 25, so it also doesn’t fall on the same day of the week each year. These two fixed dates at the start and end of the festivities means that most of the time, we only get one Sunday in the Christmas season. This year, we are fortunate to have two Sundays during Christmas. 

By this point in Advent, you may have picked up that we are in the year of Matthew. And in Matthew‘s gospel, today’s reading is the Christmas story. “The birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.” It seems to be a little bit lacking; it's only 201 words in English, so short it wouldn’t even count as a letter to the editor. We have a story of Joseph dreaming. We have the journey to Bethlehem, and we have the birth of the child, and not a lot else. Matthew will go on to tell the story of the wise men who came to Jesus with gifts, but that is the story of Epiphany. Although we always roll the wisemen in as part of the Christmas story, it is in fact a separate event and feast of the church, which this year falls on January 6th, and we will be celebrating with a special evening service on the day. It's why the baby Mary holds to receive the wise men looks like a toddler, reaching out to grab the gifts, and not a newborn. 

This is the third Sunday of Advent, and it's a special Sunday in this season. As shown in the pink candle on our Advent wreath. Maybe I should get some pink shoes to match? Today is known as Gaudete Sunday; gaudete is Latin for rejoice. Yes, the third Sunday is our Sunday of Joy, and what is the cause of such joy? It is the joy of Mary’s yes. Today, we will sing the hymn of Mary in response to the call to be the mother of Christ. Mary says “Magnificat” which means “my soul will rejoice”, rejoice in the Lord. Mary has joy because she is to have a child. Her joyful song reflects earlier responses of unexpected joy at being with a child. Mary’s praise reflects the words of Sara, mother of Isaac, and Hannah, mother of Samuel, in the Old Testament. Neither expected to be a mother, and both, like Mary's, sang out their joy at the unexpected change in their circumstances. 

Growing up in England, I had a very particular image of what America was like. America was the New York City skyline, National Geographic photos of the Grand Canyon. It was a vintage version of Huckleberry Finn on the mighty Mississippi, the endless western scenes of Dances with Wolves. Yes, I got America through TV, and America was a land of ‘go big or go home’. Those homes were big, too. They were the mansion in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the house from Home Alone, and MTV Cribs. In my imagination, America was a big land, with big people who like to do things big. And it's kinda true. 

Today is the feast of Christ the King. Christ the King is an interesting festival, one of the newest dates in the liturgical calendar. Created in the 1930s in response to the rise of authoritarian fascist and communist governments, in which the cult of the leader usurped the place of Christ in the people's lives. It also responded to the rise of mass democracy, in which the will of the masses took the place of Christ in people’s lives. And the rise of consumerism, in which the cult of individualism made the individual consumer the God in their own lives, so that we as individuals take the place Christ should hold in our lives. Christ the King stands as a feast that reminds us: God is God and nothing else should take that place, no earthly ruler, no political creed, no selfish intention. 

This morning in our gospels, we’ve heard how Jesus and some of his disciples are hanging out by the temple. The disciples were struck by the temple’s size, the sheer scale, and the beauty of the building, and pointed them out to Jesus. I have been to a lot of very spectacular worship places, huge basilicas, massive cathedrals, and churches of great beauty. But for the Jewish community of Jesus' day, there was only one truly spectacular place of worship for them, the temple in Jerusalem. Synagogues had started to be built at this time, but they were always smaller. More local affairs that did not have the scale, the grandeur, or the imposing presence of God that the temple carried. Prior to the building of the first temple, God‘s presence had been found wherever the Ark of the Covenant was carried. The presence of God in the tabernacle had led the people out of slavery and continued to come to them in the promised land. Throughout the time of the judges, the place where you could meet God in worship moved around Israel, stopping on many different hilltops, by riversides, and in fields under oak trees, so that people could gather and worship. 

Earlier this week, I told my teenager, Theresa, that I had to work on my sermon and that I wasn’t sure where to start with it. She asked what the sermon was about, so I told her the story from today's gospel. When I had finished, she told me the answer to the Sadducee’s question was obvious: “In the resurrection, to which of the seven brothers would the woman be married? The one she liked best, of course.” The fictitious woman in the Sadducees’ question is an object in their story, lacking agency and choice altogether. What did my child think the resurrection would give her? Easy, it gives her a choice, power in her own life. The Sadducees weren't really interested in women having choice, or really in getting an answer; they wanted to trap Jesus in a “got you” question. After all, they didn’t believe in the resurrection. Rather, they believed that all good things happen in this life; when you are dead, you are no more. 

Today is the feast of All Saints. The surprising thing about Saints is that they’re not always who you expect them to be. There’s an old joke that captures this truth. You can make the but of the joke any denomination you want. For today, I’m gonna make them Episcopalians. So a Lutheran Pastor dies and goes up to heaven. When he arrives, he’s welcomed in through the pearly gates by Saint Peter and given a tour. As they travel around paradise, he is pleased to discover many of the people from his ecumenical prayer group are present, as well as many people he never even knew had any faith at all. However, over in one corner of heaven, there is a large wall with a big ladder propped up against it. From inside, some beautiful but rather serious-sounding chanting can be heard. 

Using a prayer of Martin Luther's, let us pray:
"Lord God, dear Father, through your Holy Spirit, you have taught and enlightened the hearts of your believers. Through the same Spirit, give us a right understanding, to be glad at all times in God's comfort and power, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord."Amen.

Today is Reformation Sunday, and as part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, we get to celebrate. Interestingly, it does not feature on the Episcopal Church's liturgical calendar, despite the fact that the Episcopal Church is a protestant church, tracing its institutional history through the Reformation. I think this difference can in part be explained by the fact that the Lutheran Church looks back with fondness to Martin Luther's posting of his 95 theses in Whittenburg as the symbolic start of our denomination. Episcopalians trace their lineage through the Church of England and its reformation. A reformation that came about later than Luther's and as a result of royal divorce, not a theological choice. And the English do not like to admit that anyone else, particularly the Germans, did something first and better than we did. So
Episcopalians end up ignoring Reformation Sunday. As a result of being both English and Episcopalian, this is my first time celebrating a Reformation Sunday. I'm quite excited.

As a teenager, I had a class on Russian history and fell in love with the topic. Russia has had a fascinating and tragic history. One in which the people have repeatedly suffered injustice at the whim of their rulers, whether they were murderous Vikings, invading Mongol overlords, despotic Tsars, Communist Party hacks, or even democratically elected presidents turned oligarchs. So for me, the image of the unjust judge always conjures a Russian show trial. Something that came to its worst excesses in the 1930s and the following purges, which saw 3⁄4 of a million executed and another million people sent to the gulags. An unjust judge would send you to prison if you didn't work hard enough, if you missed a production quota, if you failed to show up because you were sick, or if you expressed negative opinions about your political leaders. 

One of the miracles of the modern world is medical thinking. Not just the medical solutions to illness and disease, but the mindset that has enabled us to become the healthiest humans that have ever lived. Back in high school, I did a whole history model entitled ‘History of Medicine’. It was fascinating and horrifying because, until the development of germ theory in the 1850s, medicine was basically magic. Modern medicine relies on a process of empirical research in which you observe a hypothesis. You guess the cause, and then test to see if you're right. In modern medicine, leprosy has been shown to be a particular illness, known as Hanson’s disease. A long-term bacterial infection in the skin that affects vision, breathing, and peripheral nerves. So that sufferers lose the sense of feeling in their skin. As a consequence, people with Hansen's disease frequently have cuts, bruises, and injuries they are unaware of. These become infected and can lead to substantial disfigurement or even death. It’s fair to say leprosy is a pretty scary disease. Though it can be treated by antibiotics, something unimaginable before the advent of germ theory. 

Today, our gospel throws us straight into a hot topic: the question of faith. Faith often gets mistaken for belief. People often say they have faith in a thing, meaning that they believe in its existence. So before we talk about faith, let's consider what belief is. Belief is a thinking or feeling that something is. It can be an idea or an emotion. The irony of beliefs is that they can be quite contradictory. I believe that the delicious pack of salt and vinegar chips in the grocery store is bad for my health, especially because I know I’m gonna eat the entire family party-size bag by myself. I can also believe that they are very delicious. You can believe two things that are contradictory. Those chips are really bad for me, and those chips are really good for me. 

 It’s quite easy when commuting around the place to miss things. You get used to the roads you drive, and you don’t see what’s around. It’s all too easy to listen to your audiobook, the talk on the radio, or whatever music you currently have and miss what's happening in the world outside. I’ve been enjoying the season change as it’s drawing my attention back to what is outside of my car, outside of my own head, with the arrival of red leaves and turkeys by the side of the road. The season of creation has reminded me that I need to get outside, which is fortunate since the weather is obliging. Things have been a little bit cooler, and I’ve been able to spend time in the yard with my dog and even been on a walk with folks from church. This reconnecting with the world around us, this reconnecting with nature and the drawing out of my attention from my own worries and distractions, mostly in the form of my phone, reminds me of the work we all need to do when I reflect upon today’s parable. 

A few summers back, my family and I had the opportunity to spend a week on MDI, and enjoyed being tourists around Acadia National Park. Acadia National Park was founded as a national Monument in 1916 and celebrated by Theodore Roosevelt, the inventor of national parks, as the only national park on the Northeast Coast. Charles Elliott, a landscape designer, first envisioned the park in the mid-1800s. He was supported by his father, the then-president of Harvard. The Elliott’s along with their neighbour George Door, turned their family summer retreats on Mount Desert Island into a nature reserve and park. From these small beginnings and this idea of preserving the land for future generations, Acadia National Park has expanded to include over 50,000 acres of land on MDI and its surrounding islands. An expansion funded in part by John D Rockefeller, who laid out the carriage roads on MDI. The expansion of the park only stopped in the 1980s when the US Congress finally put a limit on the size of the park. 

You might already know this, but I used to live on a small island called Iona. An island of the west coast of Scotland that had more sheep than people living on it. This parable reminds me of living near sheep, I’m reminded of trying to get to a service and having to push through a flock gathered around the gate into the church yard. Maine used to be more familiar with sheep. European settlers brought sheep to this area and cleared the forests to create pastures for grazing. The hills and valleys of Maine proved to be good for sheep farming. We were a major exporter of mutton until an economic crash in the 1830s, and the opening up of cattle ranching out west changed American tastes in meat. At which point, much farm land in Maine was abandoned and reforested. When you walk through the main woods, it’s quite common to come across dry stone walls, those long piles of stone. They are remnants of the old sheep fields. 

Hello, it's good to be back with you for the start of the Season of Creation. A season when we acknowledge God as creator of all that is and seek to come

alongside creation, while it gives glory to God in its own way, sometimes just by being. We don’t need to print the word Jesus on everything for everything to worship God. Every animal, every bird, every fish and creature of the sea, every tree, flower or fungus, every cloud, rock, grain of sand, every plant, star, or beam of radiation, all of it gives glory to God. Trinity Chapel down in Kennebunk Beach, where I vacationed, has windows that reflect nature's praise of God. They picture birds, animals, children, rocks, the sea, and even lightning, all being encouraged to praise the lord. My favorite was a window with a painting of a whale and the words “O ye whales, bless ye the Lord.” Just whales, they get a whole window to themselves. 

Jesus, Jesus, what are you doing to me? Jesus, the Prince of Peace, warns us that the gospel will lead to strife and conflict. What is this! I understand that mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws will fight, but the rest of this is distressing. Well, as we've already covered before, and we will keep covering for the rest of this church year, Luke is the social gospel. In Luke, Jesus's gospel has implications for how we live as social beings in our society and the relationships that we have with others. Jesus seeks to renew the world, including the relational worlds made by us humans.

Our gospel reading today comes in the middle of a section about discipleship. Throughout this summer’s readings, Jesus is teaching his disciples how to live when he is gone, he is teaching us. Today, Jesus confronts a reality that seems very unspiritual. Namely, where you spend your money is what matters to you. Jesus is saying, “Put your money where your mouth is”. We tend to think of money as something outside of our spiritual experience, part of the world, and the enemy of faithful engagement with God. Yet today, Jesus makes clear that money is a demonstration of our intentions. When we choose to spend our money on things that benefit others; look after the widow, orphan, and the poor, we show the gospel. Simple, right? Charity is Godly. When we strive to bring the kingdom of God on earth, spend our money, our time, and our energy in support of the church’s mission, we are living as disciples.

Family disputes can often be quite unpleasant, as can disputes about money. Having gotten into arguments about splitting the bill when out to dinner with relatives, when we were both trying to pay, I can well believe that money has always been a leading cause of family tensions. In today's gospel, we encounter someone who tries to get Jesus involved in resolving a family dispute about money! "Jesus, tell my brother to split the inheritance with me". You may have heard it said that if you have problems, try taking them to Jesus, and here we see someone doing literally that, and what does Jesus do? Well, he does the sensible thing and he stays well clear of this argument. Jesus, the only one who can be a truly just judge, is frequently to be found in the gospels, insisting that we have to figure out problems for ourselves. 

Last week, I encouraged everyone to pray throughout the week. But as tends to happen when you encourage people to do a thing, the next question that pops up is: “But how am I supposed to do that?” The question of how should I pray is not a new one. Throughout the whole history of the church, the question of what words to use when communicating with our God has been an important part of Christian faith. The very first church, Jesus' disciples after the resurrection, wondered if it was appropriate for them to use the synagogue prayers and to go to the temple to pray. Later, there were questions about whether you could offer sacrifices to an idol to save yourself from civil penalties and then return to the church and pray, or if Christian prayer was an exclusive activity that meant you could not bow to any other authority, even if that meant certain death in a Roman arena. And from the starting place of our traditions, the repetition of prayers was one of the things attacked in the reformation by both Anglican and Lutheran reformers.