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

the Rev. Mark A. Michael, Interim Rector

“And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours. St. Luke 4:6-7

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

“If anything unites America in this fractious moment,” says the New York Times’ David Brooks in a recent column, it is a widespread sentiment that power is somewhere other than where you are.”[1] “The Republican establishment thinks the grass roots have the power,” he continues, “but the grass roots think the reverse. The unions think the corporations have the power but the corporations think the start-ups do. Regulators think Wall Street has the power but Wall Street thinks the regulators do.” He goes on to cite a recent Pew study which asked Americans, “Would you say your side has been winning or losing more?” Sixty-four percent of us, majorities of both parties, believe our side has been losing more.

People respond to this feeling of powerlessness, Brooks says, with “pointless acts of self-destruction.” When we believe we have no power, compromise is suspicious. If we believe we have no power, utopian dreams seem the only possible escape. If we have no power, we must get behind the one who promises to “start winning again,” no matter what real abilities he might have to keep his promise. This sense of powerlessness, Brooks says, is very dangerous in a political system like ours, which attempts to draw together a deeply diverse society through common citizenship and shared institutions.

And as in many past elections, there’s plenty of religiosity in the hysterical rhetoric we’re hearing. Candidates are appealing to the fact that so many of our fellow Christians feel particularly powerless. They can see that church attendance is declining, that religious voices are taken less seriously in the places where real decisions are made.

Episcopalian blogger Rachel Held Evans wondered in a recent post[2] why polls show that the embarrassingly secular Donald Trump is the favored candidate of America’s evangelicals. She found a pretty shameful reason in one of his recent speeches. “I’ll tell you one thing,” Trump told a crowd in Sioux Center, Iowa, “I get elected president, we’re going to be saying ‘merry Christmas’ again … And by the way, Christianity will have power … because if I’m there, you’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well.”

“This is the gospel of Donald Trump,” Held Evans continued, “his ‘good news’ to Christian voters: Stick with me and you’ll be a winner. Stick with me and I’ll give you power, protection, prestige.”  She notes, “It’s also the very thing Satan promised Jesus when he tempted him in the desert.”

Now hear me on this. I don’t think there are little red horns somewhere in the Donald’s big hair. But I do think Held Evans is on to something in holding up this moment in our society against the choice offered by Satan to Jesus, standing on that high peak with all the kingdoms of the world spread before him.

Commentators often rank this as the most serious of Jesus’ three temptations, the defining choice that points most directly to heart of his life and work. The stakes are the highest. The choice is also phrased most directly. Will Jesus bow down to God or Satan? For whose ends will He devote His talents?

Saint Ambrose, who wrote one of the early church’s greatest commentaries on this passage call this temptation ambition, the willingness to sacrifice moral principle in pursuit of a larger aim. Saint Ambrose knew something about ambition. Before his ordination he had been a Roman consular prefect, a man of great wealth and influence. He turned his back on a world dominated by ambition to serve Christ in the church. And he says that ambition is driven by a fear of powerlessness, and it reveals the weakness of the one who chooses it. “That ambition might govern, he says, it makes itself slave to another. It wants to be exalted, but it is made to stoop.”[3]

Satan was inviting Jesus to stoop, to become his slave, to turn away from the Holy Spirit poured out on Him in Baptism.   Satan was urging Him to forsake His beloved Father, to abandon His moral integrity, to reject the purpose for which He had been sent into the world. And because it was Jesus, it sounds at first to us like an impossible choice. Yet the Scriptures tell us that He was tempted in every way as we are, tempted even to ambition, tempted to betray all He was, all He was meant to do.

Because this trade, loyalty for power, stooping so as to be exalted, how often we make it. The temptation to ambition is a constant feature, not just in the world of election cycles, but in the long and tragic history of the Church. Again and again, we have felt powerless, and our leaders have made deals for the sake of a little more influence, a little more money. And sometimes we’ve managed to get ahead, but not without spending a great deal of our moral capital. Exalted in the eyes of world, but feeble and shameful in the eyes of the One whose judgement really matters.

It’s a choice that is before us in this election season, and there’s more than one candidate eager to cut us a deal. But how often this choice also lurks in different ways in all the smaller political arenas of life: the office, the club, the community organization, the family. We hear that ancient voice, don’t we? “Pushing back’s the only way to get a little respect around here.” “She’s spent all her second chances.” “Cut him down to size and they’ll start taking you seriously.” “ Just look the other way and we’ll take care of you next time.”

The true power, that which always endures and conquers, is God’s gift. It can’t be won in an election, bartered across a breakroom table, or bought for millions of dollars. It has nothing to do with fame or flashy talent. The Spirit poured out on Jesus in Baptism rests also on us. By Christ’s grace, the Lenten preface proclaims, “we are able to triumph over every evil, and to live no longer for ourselves alone, but for him who died for us and rose again.” Saint Paul assures us that temptations will come, “but he will provide a way out so that you can endure it.”[4][5]

I think David Brooks is right. People respond to the feeling of powerless with pointless acts of self-destruction. And I expect that in some part of our life, right now, we each feel powerless. And the tempter is there, stroking our ambition, offering some plan that promises to put us back on top of the world again.   That temptation looks like conquest, but it’s actually self-destruction.

The truly powerful act, the one enabled by God’s grace is to stand fast, to hold fast to your integrity, to remain true to the One who has created and will judge all things. Jesus was promised all the kingdoms of this world, and left the desert still a poor man, with no followers, lacking even a place to lay His head. But Jesus held that head high, because in the test of ambition, He had preserved all that was most precious in the life God had set before Him. He’s beside you today, as you face the test of ambition. Will you call on Him for help? Will you let Him make you strong?

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

[1] Brooks, David. “The Anxieties of Impotence.” The New York Times. 22 Jan. 2016, A25. Brooks is quoting the International New York Times’ Anand Giriharadas here.

[2] “Donald Trump and A Tale of Two Gospels.” http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/donald-trump-gospel-liberty 26 Jan. 2016.

[3] In Luc. c.v.11

[4] Proper Prefaces. The Holy Eucharist, Rite II. The Book of Common Prayer (1979), 379.

[5] I Cor. 10:13.

by the Rev. Mark A. Michael, Interim Rector

“The mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’” St. John 2:3

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

A friend of mine made her debut on reality TV a few years ago. Now, this was in England, where they spend even less on broadcast production than here, and where they seem to find the clergy endlessly fascinating. She was part of a series that followed newly ordained clergy in her rural diocese in the West Country.

And when the time came for her to officiate at her first wedding, the BBC camera crews were on hand. She was nervous, of course, and I guess her hands shook a bit, and she would be the first one to say that she’s always been a little clumsy. She took the rings, as she practiced many times before, and laid them on her open prayer book for the blessing. And then she dropped them—right through enormous cast iron grate on the chancel floor, down into the belly of a Victorian coal furnace. I think they ended up calling the local fire department to get them out. Of the hundreds of hours of film they shot that summer, well you can guess which scene got top billing in that episode.

There’s just something about weddings. They seem to court disaster. Take any priest out for a beer and ask him about wedding stories and you’re bound to hear a few stories that will leave you in stitches: the best man who left the ring in the glovebox, the bridesmaid’s wardrobe malfunction, the unexpected but highly entertaining guests, dueling mothers of the bride. Just go home and youtube it. You’ll see what I mean.

We want weddings to be perfect. We spend far too much money on them, and invest every piece of them with emotional drama. There’s a great deal of beauty, but a terrible amount of pressure. You get that many rented suits, pinned tea roses and fondant icing in one place and something is bound to bust loose.

Things had gone awry at the marriage feast at Cana. They’d run out of wine. Ancient Palestinian weddings were multi-day affairs, and all guests were expected to furnish a flask or two for the festivities. And somehow, for this crowd, it wasn’t enough. Maybe the guests were a bit cheap. Maybe they were particularly thirsty. Some scholars even suggest that Jesus and His disciples may have arrived unexpectedly and drained the last of the wine. It was embarrassing. People always read symbolism into wedding mishaps, and this one augured a shortage of joy, a failure to thrive.

There was plenty of water on hand, though, over a hundred gallons in big stone jars for the ceremonial washings of hands and dishes that began and ended the meals. It suggests earnest intentions, a desire to do right by God and the requirements of the law. But the planning hadn’t extended far enough. We intend the best: in religion, in creating a just society, in reconciling people, in creating things of beauty and power. We plan. We work hard. We expect so much. It’s duty that outlasts joy. We keep the form of the thing long after the life within it has spent itself out. Lakes of cold water, and not a drop of wine.

But there was a guest at that wedding. There was One who had come bring abundant life to the world. He was the source of light, the One who blazed forth the Father’s eternal joy. There was a legend that when the Messiah came, he would work miracles—like Moses, who had struck the rock and water poured out, like Elijah who blessed a barrel of flour and a cruse of oil that never ran out. The Messiah would bring wine, the rabbis said, and plenty of it. A Jewish text written at just about the same time as Saint John’s Gospel prophesied that in the Messiah’s day, each vine would have a thousand branches, and each branch a thousand clusters, each cluster a thousand grapes, and each grape would yield 120 gallons of wine.[1]

Unlike the Prayer Book’s marriage rite,[2] Saint John doesn’t describe this event as Jesus’ first miracle. Instead, he calls it, like the rest of the wonders Jesus worked, “a sign.” And, he adds, “he manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.” God had raised up miracle-workers before, and there were tricksters and conjurers then as there have always been. But there is only One Redeemer. Only one was sent by the Father, “full of grace and truth.”[3] This is no ordinary wedding mishap, this event at Cana. This sign—the cold barrels of water turned to rich wine—that was a sign of His own purpose and mission. It marked Him out as the Promised One and it revealed what He had come to do.

Jesus said to His mother, you might remember, that His hour had not yet come. Just as when Saint John talks of a sign instead of a miracle, that is no mistake. Jesus doesn’t just mean that He isn’t ready to have His talents revealed. His hour is that crowning purpose of His life, that painful duty for which, He would tell these same disciples, the Father had sent Him into the world.[4] He would also be completely spent, you could say, like those flasks that had run out at the feast. He would be regarded as a failure by the world, and a threat. He would go down into the depths, emptied of all but love: condemned, stripped, beaten, crucified.

But then, He would rise in glory. Throwing open the cold stone door of the tomb, He would pour life and joy into this tired world. He would bring hope to troubled people, and awaken courage of the face of despair. He would reconcile enemies, and make saints of the wicked.

He is the new wine of the everlasting Kingdom.   He is the very best, saved for these last days, when God is making all things new. He manifests His glory, and we too, like those ancient disciples, can believe in Him and find what we have long sought. He invites us to drink of Him, and today again we approach His Altar. There He fills us with life no one else can give.

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

[1] II Baruch 29:5 (qtd. In Raymond Brown, The Gospel according to John. Anchor Bible Commentary. New York: Doubleday, 1966, 1:105.

[2] “Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage,” Book of Common Prayer (1979), 423.

[3] John 1:14.

[4] 12:23, 27.

by the Rev. Mark A. Michael, Interim Rector

“Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.” Isaiah 43:4.

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

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,
Papa’s going to buy you a mockingbird.
If that mockingbird won’t sing,
Papa’s going to buy you a diamond ring.
If that diamond ring turns brass,
Papa’s going to buy you a looking glass.

And on it goes, that lullaby, with its gentle tale of generosity, abundance, and love. It’s a good song to sing to a child, isn’t it? What it says is this: I love you more than anything in the whole world. I would give anything to make you happy. You have nothing to fear, because I care for you. All will be well.

It’s a lovely song, one that sets a child’s life on the assurance of a parent’s love, the most solid place of all for a child to stand. I would guess it was first sung by a poor man, to a baby wrapped in blankets a little too thin. Men who know the price of diamonds don’t go on about giving them to babies. There’s something of hope in it, the promise that it will all work out some way, that in the end, there will be grace.

I haven’t lived so many years, but I’ve met enough people to understand that every baby doesn’t have that song sung to him or her. Lots of people grow up with much darker songs, like: “no matter how hard you try, you’ll never live up to my expectations,” or “there’s something deeply wrong with our life, and it’s all your fault,” or “this world is a cold and dangerous place, and you’d better fight hard if you want to make it.” Now I’m no psychologist, but I do know this: it can be a powerfully difficult thing to unlearn that song your parents sang as they rock you to sleep as a tiny child. People spend thousands of dollars, sit on dozens of therapists’ couches, they turn to all sorts of destructive habits, all trying, well trying–to hear that lullaby that they somehow missed back when they really needed it.

We don’t get to choose that song that was sung to us. That is one of those sad things about human life. We can choose what song we sing to our own little ones, though. It’s one of the most important responsibilities we have if God blesses us with children. And through the working of God’s grace, every new Christian has a good song sung over him or her at the very beginning. The lullaby at the Font, you might call it, the sure promise of God’s unfailing love.

We heard a version of it in that breathtakingly beautiful passage from Isaiah’s prophecy, read as our Old Testament lesson. Listen to it again—and see if you can’t hear that familiar lullaby in it:

Fear not,” God says through the prophet, “for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you.

You are mine, God is saying to his people. There is nothing so precious that I would not give it to you. Egypt, the greatest civilization of the ancient world, with its thundering chariots and temples that hold up the sky, it would be my gift to you. The wealth of Ethiopia and Seba, those exotic corners of the world, I would pour them into your lap. I will hold you fast in the raging waters, bring you safe through the flames. I love you more than you will ever know, and you have nothing to fear.

These, you should know, are not words spoken by the prophet in a time of prosperity, when Israel was secure and confident. They are promises made to the exiles, preparing to make their way back from Babylon. They are words to a people with no temple, no king, no earthly hope for a future. But God is not just a poor man with big dreams. He is the true Creator, the Master of all things. What He promises, He will deliver.

Great and wonderful promises were spoken over each of us when we were baptized. “You are marked as Christ’s own forever,” we will say again today, as we anoint Emmeline with the Sacred Chrism. “Heavenly Father,” we will pray in the post Baptismal Prayer, “we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon this your servants the forgiveness of sin, and have raised her to the new life of grace. Sustain her, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give her an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.”[1]

From the very beginning of the spiritual life, there is forgiveness, hope, abundant love. As Jesus stood in the Jordan, the Father announced—“this is my Son, the beloved.” We belong to God, we are made one with Christ. He says much the same to us, and then pours out His gifts upon us: His Spirit in our hearts, courage and love, joy and wonder. The list comes tumbling out—so many blessings, an abundance of the gracious mercy of the Lord. In Holy Baptism, God fills with all we need, all the blessings and graces to do the work set before us, and to continue in fellowship with Him for all our days.

Today we mark, with gratitude, another year in our common life as the people of Saint Timothy’s. It has been a year with a great deal of change, some of it very painful to many of you. I’m sure that it has sometimes felt like passing through the water and the flame as you bade farewell to a number of greatly loved leaders and companions. To some of you, our resources seem scarcer than they have in the past, and you feel a sense of loss about changes in programs and funding that help us to adjust to the realities of a new and more challenging time. But God continues to bless us, even in disorienting times. He remains abundant, raising up new leaders, opening our eyes to new opportunities. Our Latino ministry has grown significantly in the past six months. Our stewardship campaign was a great success, with a great majority of those who participated increasing their commitments over last year. Our youth ministry and mission programs remain very strong, and we’ve been exploring new opportunities for serving the needy in this community.

There’s a word of grace today for all of us. God has committed Himself to us irrevocably in Baptism. And He speaks His good word over us: I love you. You don’t need to be afraid. There will be enough. All will be well.  As you confess your faith, and renew your commitment to following Christ, may you not be afraid to do what He has set before you. May you hear his faithful song of love, the lullaby sung over you by the matchless Father of mercy.

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

[1] Holy Baptism, Book of Common Prayer (1979), 308.