My Master Will Come Again

Sermon from November 28, 2010
(Advent 1 – Year A)
Matthew 24: 36-44
St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Waco, Texas

I must tell you:
I don’t like to leave my little dog behind at home.
You see, I have a miniature dachshund that has a little bit of beagle in him, which makes him the cutest dog in the world.
Our dog is named Grady, and I hate to leave him behind at home.

Sometimes we have to leave Grady behind for short periods of time, like when we leave to go out to dinner or when we leave to run to HEB.
And whenever we leave for short periods of time, Grady runs to his little bed, which is up on a window seat.
His bed looks out of the window onto our driveway.
And when we drive away, we see Grady in his bed, peering out of the window, looking at us with sad and longing eyes, waiting for our return.
And when we come back from a short trip, Grady is still sitting in his bed, peering out of the window onto the driveway, anxiously awaiting our return.

Yet sometimes we have to leave Grady behind for long periods of time, like when we leave to go for a week at summer camp or when we leave to go on vacation in Florida.
When we leave for long periods of time, we have a sitter who comes in to feed and walk Grady every day.
Yet whenever we leave for long periods of time, Grady runs to his little bed up on the window seat.
He looks out of the window onto our driveway, with sad and longing eyes, waiting for our return.
And when we come back from a long, long trip, Grady is still sitting in his bed, peering out of the window onto the driveway, anxiously awaiting our return.

I don’t like to leave my little dog behind at home.
For Grady has no idea when we leave, if we are going to be gone for 5 minutes or 5 hours or 5 days.
Yet it doesn’t matter to our dog how long we will be gone.
Our dog waits.
He waits, peering out at the driveway, perched on the window seat.
He does not know the day or the hour that we will come home.
Our dog simply knows that we will return.

Jesus says to us, his followers:
“About that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son…
For you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
Therefore you…must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

I find it interesting in today’s Gospel passage that the writer of Matthew uses two different Greek words for the verb: ‘to know.’
One of these verbs is ginosko, which means to know, to understand because we have learned this knowledge through books or through school.
We know that 8 times 8 equals 64 because we learned that fact in school.

Yet the other Greek verb that means ‘to know’ is oida.
Oida means to know, but not because you have learned in it in school.
Rather, we know something, in our gut, because we have experienced it.

For example, I know that after all of the autumn leaves fall off of the trees and into my swimming pool, I know that fresh, new green leaves will return in the spring.
I know that green leaves return because I have experienced it.
I know that when Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade nears its ending, I know that Santa Claus will be on that last float and the holiday season will be in full swing.
I know that Santa Claus will return to Macy’s, not because I was taught it in school, but because I have experienced it.
My dog knows that when our car disappears out the driveway, my dog knows that we will return, because he has experienced it.

And I know, deep in my gut, that Jesus, will return at an unexpected hour.
I know that Jesus is coming, not because of book knowledge.
I know that Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, because I have experienced it.

We have entered into a new season of the church year.
We have entered into Advent.
The word Advent means ‘to come.’
And during Advent, we remember three ways in which the Lord Jesus comes.
First: The coming of Jesus as a baby in a manger at Bethlehem.
Second: The coming of Jesus again, at an unexpected hour.
Third: The coming of Jesus into our heart, every single day.

Therefore, I believe that if we can recognize that Jesus comes again to us, each and every day in the short-term,
Then we can know, in our gut, that Jesus will come again, in the long-term, at an unexpected hour.

And Jesus tells us that he comes to you and to me each and every day, through the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the lonely, the unloved and the under-loved.

Last Monday, I had finished my workout.
As I was leaving the gym, I purchased a protein drink at the counter.
The man behind the counter asked me.
“So, are you ready for the holidays?”
I just mumbled some reply to his question.
Then the man behind the counter continued,
“You know, it seems that the Christmas stuff starts earlier and earlier each year.
Yet I don’t think it all has to do with commercialism.
I think that people are hungry.
I think that people are hungry for something spiritual.
I don’t know about you, but I see a spiritual awakening happening in people.
What do you think?”

I could tell that this man behind the counter was hungry.
This man was Jesus, talking about a spiritual awakening that he was waiting for, at an unexpected hour.
And this encounter gave me an opportunity, without telling him that I am a priest, to talk about the season of Advent and about how at St. Alban’s we wait for four weeks for Christmas.
It gave me an opportunity to talk about how we worship fully for four weeks, focusing on the spiritual awakening of this holiday season.
This short conversation I had with this spiritually hungry and curious man at the gym gave me an opportunity to meet Jesus, in the short-term.

Therefore, I know, I have experienced, that if Jesus can come to me through a man who works at Gold’s Gym,
Then, I know, in my gut, that in the long-term, Jesus Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

However, I must tell you:
I don’t like to leave my little dog behind at home.
Yet when I am gone for a very, very long time, my dog knows that I will return.
My dog knows that I will come again because he has experienced, he knows, deep in his gut, that I return to him, day by day by day.

And so we see Jesus coming to us in the short-term,
In the face of the barber who cuts your hair whose wife just left him,
In the face of the grandmother who works the cash register at Wal-Mart,
In the face of the man who just took your parking place at the mall.
We peer out onto the driveway from our window seat, looking longingly through scripture and through prayer to see his face.
We wait and we wait…
And then, we see the headlights coming up the driveway, arriving home.

For I know, deep in my gut, that at an unexpected hour, my Master will come again.

AMEN.

Be Prepared to Give an Answer

Waco always gets excited when a new restaurant comes to town. As citizens of Waco, Susan and I get excited, as well, at the arrival of a new restaurant.

When Five Guys Burgers came to town, we told everyone about how we loved their huge burgers that we were introduced to when we lived in the DC area. When Chuy’s Mexican Restaurant came to town, we told everyone to request their spicy jalapeno ranch dressing to dip their tortilla chips into. Susan and I love to spread the good news about new and exciting restaurants that we have experienced.

When we experience a new restaurant that we love, people will ask us: “What did you order off the menu so that I can try it too? What is so good about the place?” And Susan and I have an answer at the ready, to tell them about the wonderful service we received from our waiter or the amazing Cajun French fries that we enjoyed.

The same is true with our Christian faith. People will ask you: “What do you think about Jesus? What is so great about St. Alban’s?” And if we do not have a good answer ready, then our experience rings hollow and we do not have good news, truly good news, to share.

We need to be ready to share the good news of what we have found in Jesus Christ, news about what we experience in this place called St. Alban’s Episcopal Church. So I invite you to do this little exercise: on an index card or a slip of paper, write down a short answer, a very short answer, to just two questions:

1. Why do you follow Jesus?
2. Why do you go to St. Alban’s?

When you have the answers to those questions in your proverbial hip pocket, then you will be ready to share the good news at a moment’s notice. As Paul writes, in his First Letter to Peter: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have (3:15).”

Spend some time at the “restaurant” that we call St. Alban’s. Order something new off the menu. Give yourself room to experience Jesus in this place and to accept his invitation to follow him. Then, be prepared to give an answer, a short heartfelt answer, about the reason for the hope that you have.

Sharing a new place to break bread is wonderful; sharing a place to break the Bread of Life is even better.

You Will Be A Martyr

Sermon from November 14, 2010
(Pentecost 25 – Year C)
Luke 21: 5-19
St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Waco, Texas

As many of you know, every summer, Susan and I lead a camp session at Camp Allen, the Episcopal retreat center for the Diocese of Texas, located near Navasota.
Each summer, Susan and I spend one week at camp with third and fourth grade kids and with teenaged counselors and staff.

The summer camp of 2007 is the camp session that we all remember as the “Camp of Harry Potter,” because the camp session began on the very day that the last volume in the Harry Potter book series was released.
Teen-aged counselors arrived at camp with the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows tucked under their arm, purchased at Barnes & Noble on their way to camp.
Mail that arrives for campers during the week usually consists of letters from grandparents and a box of cookies from parents.
But during this week of camp, the bulk of the mail for campers was from Amazon.com, with the Harry Potter book sent as a gift from parents.
Night after night, 8 and 9 year olds and teenagers, and even adults, stayed up ‘til all hours of the night in their cabins, reading the last Harry Potter book by flash light, to find out how the Harry Potter series turns out in the end.

Yet there was an agreement that was made at our campsite.
No one who got to the end of the book was to spoil the ending and tell others about how it all turned out for Harry Potter and his friends at Hogwarts.

However, after a few days, a rather annoying counselor stood up at lunch on a bench in the dining hall and yelled out:
“I finished the book last night
And I know how it all turns out.
Harry Potter dies in the end!”

The whole dining hall erupted in boos and hisses because she had spoiled the end of the story.
We wished that this annoying counselor had just kept her mouth shut.

I sometimes wish that Jesus had kept his mouth shut.
Yet Jesus stands up in the Temple in Jerusalem and tells us all how it is going to turn out for us.
Jesus stands up on a bench and tells us all how it is going to turn out, as he proclaims:

“You will be arrested and persecuted and hauled before kings and governors because of my name.
You will be betrayed by parents and relatives and friends.
Some of you will be put to death.
This will give you an opportunity to testify.”

Sometimes I wish that Jesus had just kept his mouth shut and not spoiled the ending.
And I really wish that Jesus had not spoiled the ending when I read this biblical passage in the original Greek language of the New Testament.

You see, we have translated Jesus’ statement as this.
“This will give you an opportunity to testify.”
But the actual Greek is:
“It will turn out for you – as a testimony, as a witness.”
And the word that we translate as testimony or witness is actually the word “martyrion,” a martyr.

Therefore, Jesus stands up in the Temple in Jerusalem and spoils the ending of our story, proclaiming:
“It will turn out for you - that you will be a martyr.”

A martyr is someone who is killed for their faith.
It can make us uncomfortable to think that we have been crucified and buried with Christ in our Baptism, already resurrected to a new life across the river.
It can make us uncomfortable to think about being killed for our faith.
Yet I think that our discomfort comes because we have lived within the confines of comfy, upper-middle class American Christianity for too long.

In the first century, most Christians certainly understood that being crucified in our Baptism and being killed physically went hand in hand.
Most early followers of Jesus understood all too well that Jesus was not spoiling the end of the story by telling them that they would be martyrs for the faith.
For gosh sakes, St. Stephen, the first martyr, was killed by stoning.
Then James was beheaded, Peter was crucified upside down and Paul was killed in Rome.
Jesus is just stating the obvious when he spoils the end of the story and tells his followers:
It will turn out for you - that you will be a martyr.

A little later in Christian history,
A 22-year old persecuted woman named Perpetua had a tiny baby and yet she would not recant her Christian faith.
So Perpetua was killed, ripped apart by wild beasts in the city of Carthage in the year 203.
A man named Alban lived in Britain in the 3rd century and converted to Christianity.
Alban was hauled in front of a Roman judge, yet he would not recant his Christian faith.
So Alban was killed, having his head chopped off.
A preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr. insisted that he had a dream where people would not be judged by the color of their skin, a dream of justice and dignity for every human being, a Christian belief that he would not recant.
So Dr. King was killed, shot dead on the balcony of a Memphis motel.

You see, my friends, it is the norm, not the exception, that we can expect to be killed for our Christian faith.
We should expect to be hauled in front of kings and governors – and in front of our bosses and supervisors – so that we may insist that everyone, Greek or Jew, slave or free, men or women, everyone should be treated equally.
We should expect for our friends and relatives to think that we have gone wacko on religion for worshiping a man who is killed on a cross in order to bring us abundant life.
We should expect, like many of our brothers and sisters in other countries today, to be willing to die for our faith.
Because being a witness, a testimony, a martyr, for Jesus is not the exception, but the norm, for Christian faith and living.

And we make a witness, a testimony to our faith, every time that we celebrate the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation in this church.
At every Baptism and Confirmation, we reaffirm our faith that Jesus is Lord and Savior of our lives.

And I believe that we do a disservice to those who are newly baptized and confirmed to then throw them a nice reception in the parish hall with finger sandwiches and fruit punch in tiny glass cups.
Instead, we should tell those who are baptized and confirmed the same thing that Jesus stands up and tells to us, his followers.
We should stand up and spoil the end of the story for all who profess that they are Christians, saying:
It will turn out for you - that you will be a martyr.

Now I realize that most of us are not going to be up against a firing squad of persecution in this coming week.
Yet just because we might not be physically threatened with death does not mean that we still cannot be a testimony, a witness, a martyr for the Faith.

For example, when you see someone being bullied or picked on or laughed at because they are different, for whatever reason, then speak up and rebuke that bully, even if it might cost you your reputation or your very life.
Because being a real Christian means that we are to be a testimony, a witness, a martyr even, to defend the dignity of every human being.

Jesus stands up in the Temple and tells us that by standing firm for faith and for love, you will gain an abundant and eternal and resurrected life.
Jesus has already spoiled the end of your faith story.
It will turn out for you - that you will be a martyr.

AMEN.

We Have Crossed the River

Sermon from November 7, 2010
(Pentecost 24 – All Saints’ Sunday – Year C)
Luke 20: 27-38
St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Waco, Texas

When I was in college, I was probably pretty unusual in that I did attend church on most Sundays.
However, because of the various Saturday night activities that many college students partake in, sometimes getting up for church on Sunday morning was just not an option.
Therefore, I was glad that the Episcopal parish in downtown Austin, St. David’s Episcopal Church, did offer a weekly Sunday service at 6 pm on Sunday evenings.
Among my friends in the dorm - and among my Episcopal college friends - we affectionately referred to the Sunday evening Eucharist at St. David’s as “the Hangover Mass.”

When I would attend the Sunday evening Eucharist at St. David’s in downtown Austin, I was always struck by the ancient stained glass windows in that historic church.
St. David’s Episcopal Church dates back to 1853 and many of the windows in that church are well over a hundred years old.

I always sat on the right hand side of the church, and in the right hand aisle of that church is a famous stained glass window.
This stained glass window is beautiful, and if my memory serves me correctly, the central part of the window depicts a nautical symbol, such as the anchor for a ship.
This window always reminded me that Austin was established as a river town, a town that is still deeply connected to the Colorado River and to Lake Travis.
This stained glass window was dedicated to a woman named Maggie, a woman whose dates of birth and death were from the 1800s.
And the words in this beautiful window read:

Maggie: she hath crossed the river.

Many of us question what happens when we cross the river between life and death.
Many of us would like to know what happens after we die.
We want to know if we will cross the river into heaven.

A good friend of mine, the Rev. Randall Trego, is the chaplain at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in The Woodlands.
Randall told me last week that the number one question that is asked by hospital patients, especially those who are terminally ill, is this:
“Pastor, am I going to go to heaven when I die?”

Jesus, near the end of his earthly life, is questioned about this very same thing.
Those who are with Jesus want to know what will happen when we die, when we cross the river, after our death.
So a silly hypothetical question is posed to Jesus about a woman who has 7 husbands, 7 brothers whom she marries in succession.
The question is which of the 7 husbands will be married to the woman when they all get to heaven.

Yet Jesus answers this silly question by telling us that we are asking the wrong question.
The central question of the Christian faith is not about heaven.
The central question of the Christian faith is about resurrection, as Jesus replies that all of us are daughters and sons of the resurrection.

You see, the concept of heaven, the concept of an afterlife, is not particularly Christian.
In Greek mythology, the dead are carried across the River Styx into an afterlife.
Buddhists believe in several different layers of heaven.
Muslims believe that those who have led a good life are granted an entrance into heaven.
And in contemporary, secular American life, when someone dies, we tell the family:
“She is in a better place” or
“He was a good man, so I am sure he is heaven.”

The concept of heaven, the concept of an afterlife, is not unique to Christians.
However, while the concept of heaven is not unique, the concept of the resurrection of the dead is unique to the Christian faith.

You see, my brothers and sisters, only Christians believe that we have already passed over from death to abundant life.
Only Christians believe that we have been already been killed, dead and buried with Christ in Baptism - and then raised, resurrected, to a new life of grace.
Only Christians believe that the great chasm between death and life is not when our bodies die,
But the great chasm between death and life is the troubled waters of Baptism.
Only Christians believe that we have already crossed the river.

Therefore, I want you to take a moment to look around at the names written on the walls on the inside of this church.
I want you to take a moment to look at the names of the saints who have gone before, because the men and women who are represented by the bricks on our walls are the very same as us.
Just take a look at these names...

To God, both the names on these walls and the human bodies in the pews are the very same.
To God, all of us, both the living and the dead, are sons and daughters of the resurrection.
To God, all of us, both the living and the dead, have already died in Baptism and are now living resurrected lives.
To God, all of us have already crossed the river.

So if we have already crossed the river,
If we have already died and been resurrected in the waters of baptism,
Then how do we live a resurrected life?

For me, for Jeff Fisher, I must remind myself that I have already been killed at my Baptism - so what else can this world do to me?
To me, living the resurrected life means that I do not have to be afraid of homeless people, because I am already resurrected and living on the other side of the river.
To me, living the resurrected life means that I do not have to be afraid of giving away my money and my things, because I am already resurrected and living on the other side of the river.
To me, living the resurrected life means that I do not have to be afraid to imitate the lives of the saints:

Therefore, I can imitate the love for God and the love for others of my 4 dead grandparents, whose names are on these walls.
I can imitate the love for the poor of St. Francis of Assisi.
I can imitate the intense prayer life of St. Teresa of Avila.
I can imitate the passion for justice of Martin Luther King, Jr.
I can imitate the obedience and courage of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I can do all these things through Christ who strengthens me, because I am a son of the resurrection, already living abundantly, on the other side of the river.

Many people ask the question:
“Will I go to heaven when I die?”

While this is not a bad question to ask, it is not a particularly Christian question to ask.
And I know this because I have examined the liturgy for the Burial of the Dead, the funeral service in The Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.
And my examination of the burial liturgy revealed to me that when your heart stops beating and your funeral is held here in this church,
At your burial service, the word “heaven” will only be said - just one time.
Yet the words “resurrection” and “life” and “baptism” will be said over and over again.

You see, my friends, the quest of the Christian faith and life is not heaven.
The quest of the Christian faith and life is to live an abundant and eternal and resurrected life, now.

Because, as Christian people, we have already passed from death to life in the waters of Baptism.
As Christian people, all of us are alive, whether our bodies are breathing in these pews or our names are up on these walls.
As Christian people, all of the baptized are already daughters and sons of the resurrection.

For to God, all of us are already saints.
To God, we have crossed the river.

AMEN.