Today is the first Sunday in Advent and we mark the beginning of a new liturgical year by entering a season of preparation for the arrival of our Lord, Christ Jesus, into the world. But how, exactly? And why? Didn’t Jesus already come to us through his miraculous birth to the Blessed Virgin Mary in a manger two thousand years ago? Even in our world where the Feast of the Incarnation, also known as Christmas, has become thoroughly commercialized, we still hear carols on the radio proclaiming the wonder of the nativity story in shopping malls, advertisements, and on the radio. As ubiquitous as Christmas is this time of year, it’s easy to take for granted the story of God’s arrival on earth as just that – a cozy story of a possible historic event that is a nice aesthetic embellishment to a season filled with so many other mixed symbols of ambiguous origin.
Read MoreLast week I prepared an activity on contemplative prayer for the youth in our EYC group. My idea was to have all of us gather here in the nave on the eve of All Saints week, dim the lights, put on Gregorian chant, to invite our youth into a space of quiet contemplation in the hope that we might carve out time in our chaotic lives to simply be still, listen, and be present to God’s loving presence in our midst. The coup de grace of this contemplative moment was that we were going to light the thurible – our liturgical incense burner – and experience how the smoke, rising up like our prayers, can help prepare us for a bodily encounter with the divine.
Read MoreOn this Feast of All Saints, something incredible is about to happen. We are going to welcome someone special as the newest member of the Communion of Saints, which is the whole household of faith, past, present, and future. And we are going to do this by baptizing her in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But first, what is baptism, exactly? What is going on when we do it?
Read MoreIf you had been contemplating tax evasion – or pledge evasion – this morning, the Gospel lesson may have complicated these plans for you. Today we hear the famous ‘render unto Caesar’ passage in Matthew, as it is translated in the King James Bible. The situation presented to us is this: the Pharisees come to Jesus and pose a question to him in bad faith. The question is whether it is lawful for faithful Jews such as themselves to pay taxes to the Roman emperor. Now, why is paying taxes for them a problem? Their problem is not the obvious financial inconvenience of taxes. Observant Jews at the time had no issue with the notion of taxes in general. Every adult Jewish male was expected to pay a modest tax for the work, worship, and upkeep of the Temple, that functioned much like our pledge to support the ministries of our parish today. Rather, the issue with paying Roman taxes was the moral dilemma of whether or not it was in their interest, as a colonized people, to pay taxes to their colonizers. Because the Roman empire had taken over the region of Palestine in the 1st century by use of military force, which, in a sadly familiar situation, resulted in much religious and political conflict.
Read MoreThe Episcopal Church is not known for having a lot of easy, straightforward answers to difficult questions, so you might be surprised to learn that in the back of the Book of Common Prayer, we actually do have a catechism, a helpful teaching tool with simple questions and answers explaining the basics of our faith. There’s a section explaining the Ten Commandments—it offers useful paraphrases that boil down the central teachings of the commandments: our duties to God, and our duties to our neighbor. But it’s the last question of the commandments that really interests me: “Since we do not fully obey them, are they useful to us at all?”
Read MoreLast Sunday we heard the dramatic Exodus story of God delivering the Israelites from captivity in Egypt. Moses raises his arms, staff in hand, a fierce wind blowing, commanding the Red Sea to open, and it opens. The Israelites walk through on dry ground and just as they are on the other side, the water comes crashing down on their Egyptian oppressors. There is rejoicing all around. Moses’ sister Miriam, tambourine in hand, leads her people as they sing and dance, giving thanks to God for everything God has done for them. But almost before the last note is sung, all that exultation and joy turns to frustration and anger. God had wrought an incredible miracle in leading them out of Egypt, but then they enter the wilderness. They start a long journey to a new land of their own that God had promised them, an abundant land, a land “flowing with milk and honey”. But the people quickly discover that getting there is going to be hard work. They want to trust in God, but their anxiety about survival is choking their faith. They have forgotten all that God did for them to get them out of captivity. What they remember is the really good food in Egypt. They forget the part about being were slaves, they forget that they weren’t free. They used to have plenty of food, but here in the wilderness, they are free, but they are worried about where their next meal is coming from. God gives them bread, plenty of bread in fact, it meets their needs, but it is strange and not very tasty. There is more than enough for everyone each day, but they aren’t allowed to save any for the next day, so that they will learn to trust in God’s provision, day by day by day. Even the wilderness is a place of abundance because God is there, but they just can’t see it that way.
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