By Rev. Mark A. Michael, Interim Rector

“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” St. John 13:34-35

It is good to be back with you this morning. As some of you will know, I have been in central Africa for the last few weeks. I have spent a little of my time watching magnificent wild animals, and a little of it eating delicious wild animals, and a little of it explaining to bewildered Zambian taxi cab drivers how it can possibly be that Donald Trump is doing so well in the primaries.

But most of my time has been spent attending and writing stories about an important meeting of the worldwide Anglican Communion. I was sent to Africa as a reporter for The Living Church, a magazine and website that serves the Episcopal Church, to report on the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council that was being held in the Cathedral in Lusaka, Zambia. If you want to read a few of my articles that summarized what was happening, you find them on The Living Church website.

The Anglican Consultative Council is an assembly of clergy and laity sent from each of the 39 member churches or provinces, of our Anglican Communion. The Council meets about every three years in a different place in the world. The last meeting was in Auckland, New Zealand and the next one will be in Sao Paulo, Brazil. There were around eighty delegates at the meeting, and three were from our own Episcopal Church.

The Anglican Consultative Council is one of four instruments of unity that hold our Communion together and that work together to coordinate our work and make decisions on matters that affect all of us. The other three instruments are the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the spiritual head of our Communion, the Lambeth Conference which gathers all of the bishops of our Communion every ten years in London, and meetings of the primates, or chief bishops of each of the member churches. Those happen about every two years.

Now there was a great deal of tension hanging over this gathering of the Anglican Consultative Council because of a decision made by those primates, or chief bishops, when they met together in Canterbury back in January. Many of you will know that at General Convention last summer, the Episcopal Church decided to permit the blessing of same sex marriages. We are the first member church of the Anglican Communion to do this, and we had been urged repeatedly by the rest of the Communion not to do this, because this decision violates our common received teaching about sexuality and marriage and has the potential to deepen our divisions.

The Anglican primates laid out a series of consequences for the Episcopal Church that would result from this decision, namely that members of our church would not be permitted to serve on committees that represent the entire Communion for three years. As penalties go, it was a pretty mild one, and some of the more conservative African Anglican churches did not think it strong enough. Some within our own church believed the penalties to be unfair, and were urging the Anglican Consultative Council to defy the primates in this matter, to create a kind of showdown between these two bodies that are designed to bring us together

In the weeks leading up to the meeting, three different African churches declared that they would boycott the meeting. One of the Episcopal delegates declared that she would violate the consequences. About two weeks out, it looked like the whole meeting might just be called off—I even looked to see how much it would cost me to cancel my flight. A fellow writer for The Living Church joked rather grimly that I needed to go and cover it because it would probably be the very last worldwide Anglican gathering in history.

But thanks be to God, we will meet again. As the group’s chair, Bishop James Tengatenga remarked in his closing sermon, “the rumors of the Anglican Communion’s demise are, I am glad to say, greatly exaggerated.”[1] But what interested me most was the way the tension was dispersed, and the way we came together, in spite of our differences, to find unity in following Christ together. What I saw happening over the course of the meeting was the Holy Spirit working to bind us together, teaching us to love one another as Jesus commands his disciples in our Gospel lesson. The Spirit was helping those who were gathered, on behalf of us all, to deepen in our resolve that our common mission as Anglicans depends on continuing in relationship with one another.

As I said, the meeting began under a kind of cloud. The first day, it was easy to tell which groups were supporting one another. There was a nod to our common English heritage in lots of tea breaks, and over tea, Africans were whispering to Asians, and Americans to Canadians and Scots. We seemed to be gathering coalitions for the big fight that seemed inevitable. At opening prayers, the dean of Lusaka Cathedral told us that people of Zambia had been praying for us, “not just for the conference, but for unity in the church.” “The world is watching,” he said with deep emotion in his voice, “the world is waiting.”[2]

In the afternoon, the Archbishop of Canterbury gave a report on the primates’ meeting. But he didn’t use it as an opportunity to scold the Episcopal Church. In fact, I think he said more gracious things about the Episcopal Church over the course of the meeting than any other member church. His report was about how we need to work together, developing relationships across our differences, for the sake of our common mission. Among his words were these:

In the midst of such difference we face a choice, of being distracted by difference or being intentionally united in discipleship to Jesus Christ. To be united by Christ, as intentional disciples, is the only way we show to the world that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. As Anglicans we are called to be something special, a people of reconciliation, finding authority through relationships, transcending complexity and difference, relishing diversity, loving each other. A monument, a beacon to the hope of Christ.[3]

At the close of the Archbishop’s talk, there was discussion, and then a sort of unclear vote on his report that left many people confused and angry. There were contrary public statements by leaders on either side.

But then the next day, the council did something very different. The delegates sat around intentionally mixed tables, and they talked about the challenges they were facing as they try to follow Christ in their own contexts. And there was remarkable consensus in what people were saying. We all have trouble connecting youth to the church and facing the challenges of growing secularism. Climate change is threatening the Maldives and Antiguia, and Alberta in Canada. There are serious problems with violence against women in Africa and South America. Refugees are on the move everywhere. There is persecution in the Middle East, Pakistan and India. Gun violence is a big problem in the US and in South Sudan.

What was interesting is that very few people talked about sexuality, the big thing that divides us in those conversations. Instead they talked about the needs we all have, the areas in which we can learn from each other, the challenges that demand a common voice and new programs for us to work with each other.

And the rest of the conference was mostly about those big issues.   The Archbishop of Canterbury used his major address to talk about religiously motivated violence and climate change.   Several sessions were devoted to a new common program on discipleship, developing resources to help people deepen their commitment to following Christ and adopting a pattern of devotion to guide them. The Council reestablished its Youth Network, and talked much about ways that the church should engage with youth culture.

Over the week and a half that followed, I saw friendships developing across those lines that seemed so clearly drawn on the first day. I saw people listening to each other, learning from each other. I saw the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Communion’s new Secretary-General emerging as trusted leaders, commanding respect for their clear thinking and wise words. I saw this group of important church leaders modeling what it should be like for all of us to live together in Communion. I left the meeting much more confident about our common future than when I arrived. I left proud to be an Anglican.

When Jesus told his disciples in the Upper Room that their love for each other should be their greatest witness in the world, he was not commanding an easy thing. The disciples were a notably diverse lot, and they had argued several times while he was still with them. Jesus had chosen different kinds of disciples purposefully, so that they would be able to go out after his resurrection in all different directions to proclaim the Gospel to many different kinds of people

We can trace their life together after the resurrection in the Acts of the Apostles, and it was not always a smooth and easy path they walked. Missionaries have to make judgment calls in new situations, they take risks so that new people can receive the message. It leads people to cross boundaries, like Peter was doing when he received the Gentiles into the church after the great vision recounted in our first lesson.   Sometimes those new things were received graciously, sometimes they were challenged, sometimes they were rejected.

But the unity that the disciples maintained, despite all these challenges was remarkable. They remained joined to each other, because above all they were serving the risen Christ, and not their own agendas. They forgave each other, listened to each other, renewed their love for each other, because it was the Spirit that held them together, not mere human judgment or chains of command.

The challenge that is set before each of us, as a worldwide Communion, as members of this congregation, in our families and workplaces, is this. Will we too give place in our hearts to the Spirit of love? Will we serve first the risen Christ, and work together with our brothers and sisters who will be different, but whose help we need to do it faithfully? The size of our institutions, the numbers in our churches, the variety of programs we offer, these are all important, but our greatest witness to the world, the way we show who has sent us, is by our love for one another.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

———–

[1] Tengatenga, James. “The Truth Shall Set You Free.” http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2016/04/the-truth-shall-set-you-free-bishop-james-tengatengas-farewell-sermon.aspx 19 Apr. 2016.

[2] qtd. in Michael, Mark. “Applause for a Notion.” The Living Church. http://www.livingchurch.org/applause-notion 8 Apr. 2016.

[3] Welby, Justin. “Pearl of the Kingdom.” The Living Church http://www.livingchurch.org/pearl-kingdom 8 Apr. 2016.

By The Rev. Mark A. Michael

“But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than human authority.’” Acts 5:29

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There are a few Sundays a year when it would be nice if the lectionary creators had lined up our Scripture lessons in chronological order. Today would be one of them. We started with a story from the early church, then moved to a vision of the last days and then back to one of Jesus’ first resurrection appearances: that’s enough time travel to make Marty McFly’s head spin.

So let’s start again, and tell the story in order this time. It begins with the disciples, hiding that first Easter evening in a locked upper room. They were terrified, confused, grieving, and lost. They were afraid of those who held the power, especially the temple authorities who had handed Jesus over to be crucified, and who might have them next on their list. They were still mourning Jesus’ death and the way that it had dashed all their hopes. They were confused about the events of the morning: an empty tomb, a vision of angels, maybe Magdalene had even seen the Lord. But what did it all mean? Where was Jesus? When would they see Him again, and what would He think of them? What comes next?

And in that tense moment, Jesus appears to them. He stands amid them, and He breathes peace into their troubled hearts. His Spirit fills them with courage and clear vision. He shows them the marks of the nails in his hands and his side, and suddenly, while looking at those wounds on His resurrected body, the events of Good Friday began to make sense. Now they begin to see that Jesus had done what no one else could. He conquered death, returning in victory. And that meant that everything they feared—ridicule, abuse, coercion, physical harm, even death—nothing frightened them anymore. In place of fear, they had only peace.

Fast-forward a few months, and Peter stands before us. This is the very same Peter that was cowering in the upper room with the other disciples for fear of the temple authorities, the same Peter who denied Jesus on Good Friday because he was afraid to be associated with Him. Now, he’s standing before the Sanhedrin and the high priest, the very same men who had Jesus handed over to be crucified. The events of recent days haven’t changed the religious authorities at all. They’re harassing Peter, and questioning him. They have arrested, beaten and jailed Peter before, and they are reminding him what they told him the last time. He had been commanded not to teach in “this Name”—notice that they can’t even bring themselves to say the word Jesus. “We are in charge of this religion,” they were saying. “Stop trying to bring this man’s blood on us. If you don’t listen to us, you’ll be sorry.”

Instead of denying Jesus or hiding away, this time Peter gives an incredibly bold answer: “We must obey God rather than human authority. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at this right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things.” Note his audacity: “we must obey God rather than human authority.” He’s speaking to the Sanhedrin, the supreme council of Palestinian Judaism.   It’s like walking into a meeting of the college of cardinals and asking, “when are we going to get a little religion around here?” He stands here in Jerusalem, in the shadow the temple, a stone’s throw from Calvary hill.

Peter leaves no doubt that the religious authorities’ worst fears have been realized. This a coup. There’s a new high priest in town. His name is Jesus. Your services, elders of the people, they won’t be needed any more. The best thing you can do is come along with me and join up: repent and be baptized, take your place in this new thing that God is doing.

Note that this is not how coups usually work. Nobody came to Bashar al-Assad back in 2011 and announced, “This is a coup we’re starting. We’re not listening to you anymore. We just thought you’d like to have a head’s up.” Things wouldn’t have ended well for Brutus and Cassius if they’d said to Julius Caesar: “we’re going to assassinate you on the Ides of March. You might as well pick out your funeral toga.” You can bet they never breathed a word to Caesar until the knife was in his back.

What kind of man could stand before the ones who held all the power and speak such words of insurrection? Well, only a fool, or a man who knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that the coup would be successful. Only someone who knew that the alternative power structure was already in place, the masses were behind him, a force powerful enough to guarantee victory. Only that sort of person could speak like this.

And that’s exactly what Peter knows. The coup has already happened. Peter has seen the risen Lord, and has received the Holy Spirit and he is certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that victory belongs to his Lord and his God: He who is, as our Epistle Lesson proclaims: “Alpha and the Omega, he who was and who is and who is to come, the Almighty.”

“You want to kill me?” Peter dares them. “Go ahead. You saw how well that worked with Jesus. You can kill me, but you can’t keep me dead. You can lock me in prison, but you can’t keep me there. You can cut off my tongue, but you can’t stop the Good News of Jesus Christ from spreading. There is nothing you can do that frightens me because we have already won. You have no real power over me. The future belongs to Jesus Christ alone.”

Easter changes things. Our Risen Lord steps into people’s lives, and he drives out fear, pours in courage and new life, and sends out his own with a story for the world. “We are witnesses of these things,” Peter says. We have seen it in our own lives. We know it is true, and nothing can hold us back from sharing it with a world so desperately longing for peace and hope.

Would that each of us had Peter’s audacity. Would that we all could speak with such power and conviction about how Jesus Christ has changed our lives. Because He still turns the world upside down, one person at a time. [Today we see Christ doing this in Holy Baptism, as Caleb receives new life. He is united to Christ, and committed to “continuing in His risen life”—the path of bold discipleship.] Christ continues to bring new courage, to urge people to take risks, to discover new ways of serving Him. He still brings healing and peace, still pours out forgiveness.

Jesus is here today amid His own: with us in our fear, doubt and weakness. But today He says again, “Peace be with you.” He sends you out today with nothing in the world to fear and with every possible reason to tell your story, to be His witness today.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

By The Rev. Mark A. Michael

“The men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.’” St. Luke 24:5

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

The Metro, as you know, is having trouble. There are serious concerns about financial sustainability, loads of deferred maintenance, diminishing public trust. They’ve recruited a no-nonsense administrator, Paul Wiedefeld, to put things in order. Earlier this month, he shut the whole thing down for a day to repair the electric cables. The grumbling was universal. It also made for a very crowded Panera in Herndon and may well have proved that we can run the Federal government just fine out of Fairfax County so long as we have decent wi-fi.

We’re told that the cables are now all ship-shape, and they will be on to additional project. And I, at least am hoping they will soon move on to the public address system. Because if you have spent much time on Metro, you will know just how impossible it often is to understand what is being announced to you. “Next station..mmmfmfm” or “The train will be delayed…ffhghf.” I think the announcers were trained by the adults on those old Charlie Brown cartoons. It’s really pretty bad. If I’m travelling by Metro, I need to stand near the Metro map so I can tell what’s coming next. I’m apparently not the only person who has noticed this problem—try googling “Metro public address system,” and you’ll see just what I mean. The Washington Post even did a full-length feature a few years ago on one particular announcer who has the great distinction of being easily understood.   Unfortunately, he works exclusively on the blue and orange lines, which isn’t all that useful to me.

Now I can understand why the public address system can be low on the priority list. The Metro system mostly serves commuters, and after a week or so, I expect you learn when you need to transfer trains. Most of the time the announcer tells you what you already know. But there will be times when the difference between fghjgj minutes and rtyrty minutes impacts that meeting you are trying to make. And should the the train ever shudder to a halt and the lights go out you would want to know what to do next. Sometimes you really need an announcer. Sometimes a clear message makes all the difference in making sense of what is really happening around you.

This is why God sent angels to the tomb that first Easter morning. Saint Luke calls them “men in dazzling clothes” in the passage I just read to you, but when the story is repeated a few verses later, we learn these are supernatural creatures.[1] They have been sent by God to announce a most unexpected reversal. “Why do you seek the living among the dead,” they tell the women who have come to anoint the body of their dead friend. “He is not here, He is risen as he promised.”

God had sent angels before to announce such dramatic new beginnings. Angels told Abraham that his wife would bear a long-promised son. They announced the birth of heroes and called prophets into ministry. Jesus own birth was announced by an angel, and that first Christmas night, it was angels that filled the skies, proclaiming “peace on earth, goodwill to men.”

It is news they could never have pieced together on their own. It’s not a courtesy reminder, like McLean Station coming right after Tysons Corner Station. Left to their own devices, the women could only have seen a worse tragedy in the empty tomb—their beloved mislaid or stolen by his enemies. But the angels’ word announces a new beginning, a glorious action in which God has changed the whole course of human history. Jesus is no longer dead, but alive and filled with power. Christ’s resurrection proclaims that His death on the Cross is a life-giving sacrifice. It proclaims that sin’s power is broken, that death cannot bind the faithful. It vindicates all Jesus’ words and deeds, pointing Him out, as our first lesson indicates, as the One through whom God is setting right the world.

And when the angels have announced this good news, they do something really quite remarkable. They command the women to go and tell this same news to others. And then they disappear from the scene. Christ’s resurrection was announced one time by angels, and millions of time by ordinary people, in generation after generation, who have become God’s own messengers to bring this good news to a sad and broken world. The women run off to find the eleven disciples, and they share the news with them. And at first there is doubt and confusion, but then the disciples come to believe as well. They proclaim the message with power, and those who hear them share the good news with others. And on and on the chain has continued, so that here today, in Herndon, Virginia, we gather as a people who have heard and believed that Jesus is risen.

And we are bidden to go and share the same message. Because it is truly good news, unexpected news. You may be very familiar with the fact that Jesus is risen. The details of this story are etched in your mind. You know all the verses to the Easter hymns. You’ve smelled those lilies every springtime for as long as you can remember. But when you truly come to grapple with what the resurrection means for people like us you will see how the message at the empty tomb truly changes everything.

If Christ is risen, then love and mercy, not violence are the true solution to the world’s deepest problems. If Christ is risen, then there is a second chance for me. If Christ is risen, then I can live free from addiction, and sickness and pain will not destroy my soul. If Christ is risen we can pull down the barriers that divide people of different races and cultures, the walls that keep the rich and poor apart. If Christ is risen, even at the grave there can be joy and hope.

This is the message we all are called to share. And sometimes, it will be rejected, and sometimes it will be ignored. But when it is greeted with faith, it changes people’s lives in deep and beautiful ways. To share this message, to be an angel of the Easter Gospel, grows your own faith and brings deep joy. You will be amazed to see what God does when you begin to share and live the truth of Christ’s resurrection.

So then, how is your public address system? Can you announce this life-changing message, clearly and with conviction? There is good news at the empty tomb, and the world waits to hear it from us.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

[1] Lk. 24:23.

By The Rev. Mark A. Michael

“He said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” St. John 19:30

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Today is the twenty-fifth of March. That, in itself, may seem rather unremarkable to you. The dates for the celebration of these great three days of Holy Week change from year to year, depending on the cycles of the moon. We last kept Good Friday on March 25 eleven years ago, and it will next be on this date in 2157, when we will have all gone to our reward.

But it may be that the first Good Friday was also on the 25^th of March, and as they say, thereby hangs a tale.

If you know your liturgical calendar really well, you will remember that when Holy Week and Easter Week don’t interfere, we celebrate another festival on this date, March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, when the Angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, and God sent His Son into the world to save us. Christmas is exactly nine months from today. This is a day of the great end, but also of the great beginning. He came on this day to save us, and this day He announced His work was done.

The great Anglican poet John Donne, back in 1608, when once again Good Friday fell on March 25 explained it this way:

This day hath shown,

The abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one…

Of the Angels’ Ave and Consummatum est.

Ave—Hail, O favored one, and Consummatum est—it is finished.

There was a legend in ancient times, known among both Jews and pagans that great heroes, people who truly changed the course of history, were born and died on the same day. It was so, the rabbis said, for Moses and many of the great prophets, and for some of the great Roman heroes as well. There were also similar legends surrounding the particular season of the Passover, which began, Saint John tells us, on the evening of Christ’s death. This was the day when God set his people free from slavery in Egypt. But it was also then that the world was made, that Noah and his family emerged from the ark, that Abraham lifted the knife over Isaac his Son. This is a day heavy with symbolic meaning, with resonances that sound across the long story of God’s faithful love for the world He had made.

As I say, it’s an old legend, recounted by many of the early Christian writers as evidence for the truth and significance of this day, of this death and the Man who perished on it. Many medieval paintings reference it, juxtaposing the two scenes of Mary’s encounter with the angel and Christ’s death on the Cross.

It’s not the kind of argument we modern people generally find convincing. Though I suspect that many of us, if we’re really honest, do watch for the odd coincidences in the run our lives.   When a baby comes on day his great-grandmother died, we’ll note it with wonder. A letter arriving on an anniversary, a phone call arriving at a most surprising time. We watch for these things, they make us sit up and take notice.

Because what they might reveal is purpose. They allow us to pull together the raveled string that is so much of the life we live. They point to a deep consistency in the course of things. And if we are people of faith, they are more than coincidence. They deepen our trust that God is good, that He who acts in the small happenings of life will be faithful to bring all things to their long-promised fulfillment.

This day, this good Friday, can appear an unexpected disaster, an occasion where purpose and pattern seem impossible to trace. It certainly seemed so to the apostles, who spent the day hiding in fear. It seemed so, perhaps, to Pilate, who saw before His tribunal a man who simply refused to play by the rules, who would not cower or beg. It seemed so to the religious leaders, who rush about, trying every means they know to draw force their result. They think they have a plan, but clearly they’re trying too hard, nervous that it all may go badly wrong at any moment.

It’s only Jesus who seems to know what’s really happening. This is among the deepest themes of Saint John’s telling of the passion story. Jesus is completely in control. He keeps silence mostly. His words are carefully chosen. There are no protests or complaints. “He poured out himself to death”—that’s what Isaiah had prophesied generations before. And here we see it, moment by moment. He poured himself out slowly, with intent, until He spoke the last word, “It is finished.”

This was the long-determined plan, that the Son should offer His life, that the righteous One, by His blood would make many righteous. This plan of reconciliation, Saint Peter testified, was determined before the world was ever made.[1] In the Book of Revelation, Christ is praised as the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world.[2] For the joy set before him, the author of Hebrews proclaimed, “He endured the Cross, despising its shame.”[3]   Everyone else, perhaps, had forgotten the significance of this day, how what He does this day completes the annunciation’s miracle. Everyone else failed to see how the whole history of salvation led up Calvary’s hill to this moment of reckoning.

Perhaps only his holy mother also remembered, and this is part of why she takes her place beneath his Cross. Mary watches her own life coming full circle, her greatest joy swallowed in bitter sorrow. And yet, there had been warnings that it would come to this. She does not join the mob that bids him show his power and come down. This was His hour, the culmination of what was promised by the angel so long before. The angel had promised that He would be the Son of God, the Savior of His people, that He would rule a kingdom that endured forever. And this is how He must do it. This day, the sword pierces her own heart, as the prophet had foretold,[4] but in this piercing of His body, life for the world flows forth.

In one sense, of course, the death of Christ is a failure: a travesty of justice, an unveiling of the bitterness of the soul, a rejection of God’s love so freely offered. But it is also the reaching of a goal, the setting right of a world so badly off course, the return of all that was lost, the bridging of the great gulf fixed between the Holy One and a world of sinners. It is finished, He says—for this moment Mary said yes to the angel’s glorious words. For this moment, He was made, and in it all His life’s work is gathered up and laid before the Father in triumph.

“Through him,” Isaiah promised, “the will of the Lord shall prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see light; The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”

We are people who say, but very rarely ‘it is finished.’ There is so little that is resolved in our lives, so little that we know clearly and beyond a shadow of doubt.   Our motivations are mixed, our repentance not quite so earnest as we would have it be. We cannot make ourselves righteous. We do not carry our own light. We cannot bear our iniquities.

Which is why on this day of all days, we rejoice that “it is finished.”

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

[1] I Pet. 1:20.

[2] Rev. 13:8.

[3] Heb. 12:2.

[4] Lk. 2:35.

By the Rev. Mark A. Michael, Interim Rector

“He came to himself and said… ‘I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.’” St. Luke 15:17-18

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

At first, of course, he blamed everyone else. We would do the same, sitting there by the pigs, our bellies gnawing with hunger. It had been quite a ride for a while: sharp clothes, fancy meals, all the wine he could drink, fast women. He was on top of the world, a friend on every corner. No rules, no boundaries, no regrets. How in the world could it all have come to pieces so quickly?

He blamed his parents, of course.[1] Half the inheritance–they’d promised that’s what it amounted to, but it sure didn’t seem like very much. And what about that responsible brother of his—if he’d have come to mind the books, well it wouldn’t have all slipped away so quickly. He blamed all those who called themselves his friends, and sponged on his good nature, all those who’d tricked him into schemes and promised to pay him back in a month’s time. Who wouldn’t blame a thief—the dealer with the weighted dice, the pickpocket who snatched the sack from his coat, the women who left his bed before dawn. It was the fault of tailors who made shiny clothes that wore thin too quickly, tavern men who overcharged for cheap food. And this wretched famine—who could have seen it coming. This master he was serving—surely he could pay more. Surely he could find some work with more dignity. He cursed his lot. He cursed his enemies. He cursed life itself, and then stared back at the pigs, and he would have climbed down into the trough beside them if he could.

He was miserable, of course. But there’s a kind of steadfastness that can come with misery, especially when we are so certain it’s all someone else’s fault. In his mind he was the victim, the martyr, the hero even. He was everything but the sinner, the narcissist, the fool that the rest of the world could see so clearly. In her poem about the prodigal, Elizabeth Bishop described it this way:

The sunrise glazed the barnyard mud with red

the burning puddles seemed to reassure.

And then he thought he almost might endure

his exile yet another year or more…

Carrying a bucket along a slimy board,

he felt the bats’ uncertain staggering flight,

his shuddering insights, beyond his control,

touching him. But it took him a long time

finally to make up his mind to go home.[2]

What made the difference? Jesus said that there in the mud, his belly growling, “he came to himself.” That’s a weighty phrase if there ever was one. The prodigal came to see himself as he really was. He reexamined his life, weighed the sorry deeds of the past. His conscience, at long last was awakened, and he saw himself for what he truly was: a sinner, a person deeply in need of forgiveness and reconciliation with those whom he had wronged.

In the recovery community, they call it “hitting rock bottom.” It doesn’t just mean coming to the end of your resources or making your life a living hell. People can stay there for quite a long time before anything changes. Hitting rock bottom means coming to yourself, taking responsibility, admitting your sin, resolving to live differently.

The theological term is compunction, the pricking of the conscience, which is awakened to life, that shuddering awareness that I have done wrong and now must do something about it. Compunction, we believe is the work of God’s grace. It is the first step in the healing of the wounded soul.

But those stirrings must be recognized, affirmed and put into action. This is becoming contrite. The contrite person recognizes his or her own fault. He is not merely the victim of other’s cruelty. The excuses don’t tell the whole story. “I have sinned against heaven and before you,” the prodigal says. The just man, Saint Ambrose wrote, “begins by blaming himself.”[3] The prodigal’s disrespectful and impatient demand for the inheritance, his wastefulness—these, he says, are offenses against his father, to be sure. But he has also sinned “before heaven.” He has sinned against God, who has given him the knowledge of good and evil and the freedom to do what is right. The prodigal recognizes this, detesting his sin, and he resolves to avoid the same mistakes again. He wants to make things right, and so he steps up from the mud, and he turns his face toward his father’s house.

And of course, what the prodigal finds there astonishes him. His father doesn’t wait imperiously to receive his groveling. He runs out, forsaking respectability, to throw his arms around him, and welcome him back with celebration. The prodigal confesses his son, but before he can announce the plan for restitution, the Father showers him with signs of peace and favor. There must be a ring for his finger, shoes on his feet, a festal robe, the fatted calf. There is such joy, Jesus tells us, for all who repent and return to the Lord.

When we come to ourselves, God shows us His true heart, His profound love. “A broken and contrite heart,” the Psalmist tells us, “he will not despise.”[4] “LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”[5] He stretches wide His arms, and assures us of His forgiveness and restoration to the company of His faithful people. “This son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

But the Father can only receive the contrite. It is possible for us to remain crouched among the pigs, despising God’s goodness, unwilling to admit our fault. We can resist the pricks of the conscience, bound fast and so terribly alone. That’s of course, where the elder son finds himself at the close of the story. To be sure, he’s well dressed and he’s had plenty to eat. He doesn’t smell of the pigs, but confidently looks over his own fields. But make no mistake about it, he’s as lost and dead as his spendthrift brother ever was. He has not yet come to himself, and until he does, he will never know for himself the true extent of the Father’s love.

And what of us? As some of you will know, the preachers usually suggest that you see yourself as either the prodigal or the elder son—the black sheep or the goody-two shoes. I don’t think that’s entirely useless. But I’m pretty sure that God wants to get a little more out of this story than a moralistic lesson about being a little nicer to your kid sister who’s still out in Monterrey trying to figure out what to do with her life.

Every one of us is the prodigal. There is none, righteous, no not one. Read the commandments for yourself. Examine your conscience. We have all chosen our own way, and wandered far too long in a land that is waste. We have all wasted far too much time blaming others for our misfortunes. There are only two abodes, the pigsty and the Father’s embrace. The question staring us each in the face today is “how long it will take you to make up your mind to go home?”

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

[1] For this interpretive angle, see: Guthrie, Suzanne. “He Came to Himself.” The Edge of Enclosure. http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/lent4c.html 4 Mar. 2016.

[2] Qtd. in Guthrie, ibid.

[3] Letter LI, to His Majesty, the Emperor Theodosius.

[4] Ps. 51:17.

[5] Ps. 103:8.

by the Rev. Mark A. Michael, Interim Rector

“But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”” Genesis 15:8

 In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Abram had learned to wait. God had spoken to him powerfully, when he was a man in the prime of life, living in the great Mesopotamian city of Ur. “”Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.[1]” And he had gone, following this strange God and his lavish promises. God told him of an abundant land. He promised wealth. And most poignantly, he told of a multitude of descendants. Abram would be the father of a great nation.

God had spoken to him once more, when his protégé, Lot had set off to make his own way in the world. Again, there were the same promises, the assurance that God would be faithful. That was decades ago, though. Abram amassed cattle and slaves, he dabbled in politics, he became an elder statesman among the tribes of the Palestinian desert. He’d just been through a rather fierce battle, which has a way of clarifying your perspective, I’m told. But still there were no children.

And Abram was tired of waiting. God appeared to him in a vision, and again God leads with the big promises: “I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great.” But this time, Abram is ready for Him. He jumps in before God has a chance to repeat the promises to politely and respectfully decline God’s offer. It’s actually the first time that Abram addresses God. All these years he has listened and obeyed, and now he speaks, cries out really. “The bonds of restraint are broken, a commentator writes, and the patriarch bares the bitterness of his soul in a brief, poignant outburst bordering on utter despair.[2]”

“O Lord God,” he says, “what can you give me, as I shall die childless.” He gathers himself again, and then announces his plan, a second best option. “But it will soon be that time.   I’ve made out the will, and Eliezer of Damascus will be heir. He’s my best servant, he’ll know how to manage things properly. I owe him something for all those years of faithfulness.”

But God won’t let Abram go. No, God says, “your own son will be your heir. Let me show you what I mean.” And then God shows Abram the starry sky at night, all those stars you can only see out in the desert, with no trees and electric lights to get in the way. “Your own son will be your heir, and your offspring will be as many as the stars in the sky. “And Abram believed,” the narrator tells us, “and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”

At least he believed the first part of the promise, the one about all the offspring. In the morning, when the sun rose and the vision faded, he was left with a question: “how will I know?” I have believed before, I’ve wandered and waited. I want something more, a little skin on this promise.

And so the Lord tells Abram to do something very strange. It’s probably illegal in Fairfax County, but it was even strange by ancient Near Eastern standards, so strange that the narrator records all the details of it. God told him to slay several of his livestock at the prime of life: a heifer, a she-goat, a ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon. And he cut the animals in half, and laid them over against each other, a path between the halves. It’s a costly offering, even for a prominent herdsman like Abram. And it was hard work to prepare it this way. You try cutting a three year old heifer in half with a bronze knife, and see how long it takes you. This is like telling a farmer to set one of his tractors on fire, bidding an artist to slash one of her canvasses, running a checkbook through the shredder. God has required something valuable of him, and Abram gives it freely, and then he waits to see what will happen.

And, surprise, nothing happens—not for a good while anyway. Abram sits there, alongside those bloody carcasses all day. Their bodies start to swell and stink in the desert heat. The vultures start to swoop down, and Abram has to chase them away. He waits all day for God to do something about this offering he has so carefully prepared. More waiting: all day, from early morning until “a dread and great darkness” came upon him. Was it the darkness of doubt, a feeling that all was lost, that he had followed God to the end of the world, and now God had slipped away, never to return?

But in the midst of the dread and great darkness, God does appear. Like so many other things in this story, it is a strange appearance: a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passing between the animal carcasses. Blood, and smoke and fire and darkness: I’m sure the depth psychologists would have a field day with all that. But we know these symbols, don’t we? We know that this is how God show himself. Isn’t this the cloud by day and fire by night that would guide Abram’s descendents through the wilderness on the way back to this land? Isn’t this the light that appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai, the blaze of glory that surrounded Jesus when he was transfigured, the flames that came down and rested on the apostles’ heads on the Day of Pentecost?

As the smoke and fire passed between the carcasses, the narrator tells us, God made a covenant with Abram: a solemn agreement, the deepest pledge. When Abram had seen this, he knew that God would keep His word.

But what did Abram see? How did he know that this was a true covenant? What made this sign different, confirming his faith and giving him hope for the future? Of course, the narrator is far too wise to tell us exactly what Abram saw. It was a dream after all, and you know what it’s like to see in dreams: you never see just one thing, do you?   And you know more than you can see.

Did he see, as the rabbis thought, the long history of his descendants—their great moments of glory and their bitter sufferings? Did he see the temple and the land flowing with milk and honey? Jesus, you might remember, turned to his critics once and said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.[3]” Was Jesus talking about this moment, when God made the promise that could only be truly answered by coming among us, and shedding His own blood, so that the blessings promised to Abram could truly reach to every nation, and all the world would know the promise of His love?[4]

Did old Abram see us that day?   Did he see us as we continue in our struggles of faith, clinging fast to God’s promises, putting our trust in what we cannot see but believe He will bring to pass. We too, are Abram’s offspring, numbered as stars in the heavens. There is only one covenant, one great solemn promise that God has made to humanity. It was made first there in the desert, with one man in the smoke between the beasts. It was made new by the One who said, “this is my blood of the new covenant, shed for you and for many for the remission of sins.[5]” But it is the same covenant, the same God who holds before us the possibility of a holy and glorious life with Him, but who calls us to sacrifice and obedience and steadfastness along the way.

Perhaps you think that the Old Testament is rather bloody and dark and bizzare, and this story could give you plenty of evidence in that direction. But I think that it’s really all about the living the faith now, being an heir of the covenant. It’s about holding fast to God’s promises: which are certain, but for which we must often wait far longer than we would prefer.   “The faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting[6].” That’s what T. S. Eliot wrote in the Four Quartets, and it’s the great lesson that Abraham our first father in the faith still teaches us.

I cannot promise you that God will give you every blessing you want. I don’t know that he will take away your pain, or help you find a job, or discover a clear answer to that doubt that troubles you over and over again. I can promise you that in the end, all will be glory. There will be a new heavens and a new earth, a place where God is at home with His own, and all pain and sorrow pass away: the whole family of Abraham will be gathered together in their true and everlasting homeland.

I know this is true because, like old Abraham in the night, I’ve seen a glimpse of it. I’ve seen it here, as God’s people gather to share in the beginnings of that great feast, in those rays of light that shine out now as they will shine one day more fully. I’ve heard the beginnings of the songs we will chant there, tasted that the Lord is good. And that vision sustains me, as I know it does so many of you, as it sustained the old patriarch when he saw it flashing between those beasts so many centuries ago.

But for now, we must wait, as Abram waited before us. Sometimes in the dark, sometimes in the light. And “the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.”

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

[1] Genesis 12:1

[2] Nahum Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 113.

[3] John 8:56

[4] c.f. Reno, R. Genesis. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible., 162-163.

[5] Matthew 26:28

[6] Four Quartets, East Coker, III