Jul 29 | “Lost in the Call,” (Sermon, June 25th 2017)

“Jesus said, ‘A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; ²⁵it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

26 ‘So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. ²⁷What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. ³⁰And even the hairs of your head are all counted. ³¹So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

32 ‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; ³³but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

34 ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
³⁵ For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
³⁶ and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
³⁷Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; ³⁸and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

Matthew 10:24-39

Good morning, St. Anselm’s. I’m so glad to be with you today. For those who don’t know me, I’m Clare, and Father Alex and I are good buddies. We met doing Education for Ministry, and we like to joke that we absolutely failed the program, since it’s meant to empower laypeople and obviously we didn’t stay that way.

When he asked me to come in on this Sunday, I looked up the passages assigned for the day, and texted him: “Dude, these readings. Did you do this on purpose?” I imagine there’s a few parishes in our city that decided to observe St. Peter and St. Paul today so they could avoid them.

‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.’

Yikes.

This is a real challenge. For a thousand reasons we Christians have tried to denounce all in our faith that points to violence. We have tried to lay aside our swords after years of bloodshed and choose a path of peace. We have tried to disown the Crusader Jesus, the Dominionist Jesus, the Jesus that encouraged – nay, demanded – submission of those whom we saw fit to submit. We don’t always succeed in the denouncing, but we try, and we put our heart into the trying, and ask forgiveness for the times we fall short.

And then we hear a passage like this and it just unseats everything.

So what do we do? How do we hear it?

Do we remind ourselves of the context in which it was spoken: Matthew’s community, frightened and scattered, experiencing all of these things Jesus warned them about and yet trying to live in hope? Do we then safely relegate it to the dustbin believing that it no longer applies to us in the West, the privileged people of Christ? We could do that, but that might be a refuge from hard questions – and indeed, perhaps our privilege today means that this passage is more important than ever.

Do we put ourselves in the camp of the kind of people who interpret Christian persecution as hearing “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, the inclusion of LGBTQ people in all parts of society, the ceasing of prayer in public schools? We could do that, but I think most of us know we’re lying to ourselves if we believe that persecution looks more like apathy than state-sanctioned arrests and murder.

Let’s face it, both of these are the easy way out. It’s much more fun to wrestle with Scripture than to dismiss it or preserve it under glass, because no matter what we think or feel about it, it’s a living thing, it judges us as we’re judging it, and it is owed the respect of a good bout. God gave us intellect, and I think She takes delight in watching us use it.

So if we can’t tame it, warp it, or excise it, how do we hear it?

Let’s start by agreeing that it’s not likely that Jesus wanted us to go home and trash our families and friendships for the sake of the Kingdom. That would be the advice of a cultist, and cults don’t save the world; they condemn it and withdraw. Jesus came to save and sanctify, and the Anglican Church affirms that the world has been sanctified through the work of Christ. We are always walking on holy ground – that is why when we are baptized we commit to caring for others and safeguarding the integrity of creation.

Let’s consider instead that Jesus’ words are proverbial rather than prescriptive. A proverb can be used as advice, but is not itself advice: it is a statement of fact. Jesus saying, “I have come not to bring peace but a sword” doesn’t encourage us to bring swords; it lets us know that his message is not popular. Jesus didn’t get crucified for being a nice guy. He got crucified because he was undermining the edicts of the imperial culture and religious elitism around him. No one gets executed for telling people stuff they learned in kindergarten; they get executed for questioning a status quo.

Jesus was trying to give us a heads-up. If you’re doing this right, it’s going to get messy.

And we know that. We know that people get challenged, chastised, and crucified for doing the right thing every day.

It’s super depressing. But true friends don’t withhold the ugly stuff if they know it’s necessary.

And there’s good news.

As most of you will know, St. Anselm’s own Hyok Kim was ordained with seven others yesterday. It’s such a joy to see that for all the articles about low attendance and financial struggles, the church still has a voice loud enough to call eight people into a new life of priestly and diaconal service.

For all the talk of violence and fear, for all the apathy and doubt and struggle, the church still knows how to get under the ribcage, to pierce the heart, to inspire us to proclaim, “If I say ‘I will not mention God, or speak any more in God’s name,’ then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”

The Apostle Paul helps us here too. What are we to fear? Death? The living Christ has already taken the sting out of death through his work of healing and his resurrection. This truth was actually a revelation of something already stitched into the fabric of the cosmos: the life cycle of a star; the work of seeds in earth; the fallen nurse log that brings new life to the rainforest right outside our doors; the embracing cycle of water, rising and falling every day to give new life to the whole earth; the cells in our bodies. This is the story of all finite creatures: change is possible, and with change comes death, and with death comes new life. For those of us who are baptized, we have been baptized into Christ’s death, dying to an old life and rising to a new one, pushing through the chrysalis, rising up from dark waters, given new life by his breath at Easter, by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, continually in the bread and wine of this sacred feast we will celebrate together. We have been given the spirit of John the Baptizer, whom we celebrated yesterday, and we should rejoice because our message is even more joyful than his, because John testified to things yet unseen. We testify to things that we may not have seen with our eyes, but that our hearts know to be true: that in the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God,” that in the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins “the world is charged with the grandeur of God.”

So despite all fear, all uncertainty, all violence, the Church lives, and we ourselves are made seeds for the Kingdom of God, the upside-down Kingdom where the walls we put up between each other are cast down, the precious Kingdom where we all care for one another because we know how much we need each other, the wild Kingdom where all give of their gifts and talents to glorify the One who gives us life, the greatest gift.

We are the Church, we have died and we rise, we are called to proclaim and embody this truth, and we can do this.

We can do this because, like in the prayer of consecration for deacons used yesterday over Hyok, we are all rooted and grounded in love.

And Love is our master. Love is our teacher. Love is our healer. Love is our challenger. Love is our willing lamb, dying to give us life.

So take heart.

We can do this, because Jesus is alive.

I’ll close with these words from the Sufi mystic Rumi:

“Remember God so much that you are forgotten.
Let the caller and the called disappear;
be lost in the Call.”

– Preached at St. Anselm’s Church, Vancouver

May 31 | The Visitation (Poem)

The Visitation

 

Prayer, cook

Sweep, sow

Prayer, cook

Feed, prayer

Sleep

Repeat

Year

after

year

You never

received special treatment

and neither did I,

save breath

and blood.

God gave these gifts

and I gave them back.

It’s not enough.

Year after year and still

no life.

My herbs grew,

my nieces and nephews grew.

You grew,

but you were not mine:

My beloved flesh,

my cousin,

you were different.

You were slow and quiet

but your heart

was a great star.

Your eyes were earthy:

untold things grew from them,

things no-one could hope to cultivate,

things no-one could name.

I dreamed of you often,

dreams I dared speak to no-one:

Dreams that found us lying side by side

in a field of red flowers;

I looking at you,

you looking up

to heaven.

One night, the dreams came again.

Now the flowers grew out of my belly.

I stared in horror: they were beautiful

but they had faces

crying out;

they all turned like sunflowers

to look at you.

You smiled

with tears on your face.

And now in the winter of my life

you stand outside my door.

You have changed.

Your eyes were once a jungle;

dark things rustled just out of view.

Now they are suns.

I am afraid,

but you hold out your arms,

and I am drawn in:

you have made me

your moth.

I come within your light,

and life leaps within me.

My inner garden is aflame.

Later while you slept, I watered it with tears.

Now I know

what will burst forth from this parched earth

will be so much more than me.

May 30 | “Lovers in a Dangerous Time,” (Ascension Sunday Sermon, May 28th 2017)

Then Jesus said to the disciples, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’

50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. ⁵¹While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. ⁵²And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; ⁵³and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

Luke 24: 44-53

Some of the best spiritual teachers are not theologians, or academics, but musicians.

Source: Ottawa Citizen

One of my treasured spiritual teachers is Bruce Cockburn. He’s fairly well known in Canada, but if you haven’t heard him, you should really acquaint yourself with his work, which is heavily informed by his own faith.

Over the last year, I’ve found myself meditating on his haunting piece “Lovers in a Dangerous Time.” I’d previously considered this title through a political lens, but today I think it’s a really apt description of a Christian as well. We are and always have been, in a sense, lovers in a dangerous time.

I think for today’s Ascension Sunday, for the Sunday after our Diocesan Synod, and for my last sermon in this community, it seems appropriate to share this with you, and use it as a lens through which to consider the Gospel passage before us. We’ll go through it verse by verse. If you know it I invite you to join in.

The song begins:

“Don’t the hours grow shorter as the days go by / You never get to stop and open your eyes

One day you’re waiting for the sky to fall / The next you’re dazzled by the beauty of it all,

When you’re lovers in a dangerous time.”

Days after the earth-shattering execution of their teacher and beloved friend, the disciples suddenly find themselves confronted by his impossible return. But Jesus is not as he once was. His actions are familiar – he offers peace and wisdom to his friends – but he demonstrates a newfound power by somehow withdrawing into heaven. Here again, somehow, is the teacher, familiar but irrevocably changed.

The disciples must have been so confused. They had seen the sky fall…and now, watching the teacher ascend, were dazzled.

God surely continues to confuse and dazzle us to this day, for how indeed can one so vast, so incomprehensible, have lived among us, walked dusty streets, ate and drank, overturned tables, wiped away tears, and suffered? How, and why would this be so?

The teacher has changed – but the relationship has not.

And so we are called to walk the balance between that sky-is-falling awe and that dazzled-by-the-beauty reverence. How awesome…but dangerous. For a God that chose to walk among us and suffer great pain is surely a stranger and more powerful God than we could ever comprehend.

Let’s go on to verse 2.

“These fragile bodies of touch and taste / This vibrant skin, this hair like lace

Spirits open to the thrust of grace / Never a breath you can afford to waste

When you’re lovers in a dangerous time.”

When Jesus returns, the disciples encounter a presence that is corporeal. In the scene which surrounds the verses we just read, Jesus asks for, receives, and eats a piece of broiled fish. Then he shows them his hands and his side. He has not returned to them whole, perfect and unblemished as Passover lambs were required to be. This is a disabled god. Quick sidebar: Disability theology affirms that the risen Christ, disabled on the Cross, has sanctified what the world deems as broken. Incarnation doesn’t work if it’s just for the beautiful, the strong, or the well-regarded. Physicality means variation, fallibility, and finitude. God accepted all of that, choosing a fragile body well versed in the giving and receiving of loving touch, driven by the physical and spiritual hungers we all know, with a spirit open to the thrust of grace.

Knowing this, it is a fallacy to ask how our fragile, fractured, obstreperous Anglican Church could possibly profess to be a channel for the Holy Spirit, or call ourselves the Body of Christ – something that many people ask after sitting through their first Synod. Driven by the need to connect, the need to touch, we gather together, share stories, to pray for one another, and to share a sign of peace. Driven by hunger, we feed our bodies with the blessed broken body and blood, and our souls with the words of Scripture. There are few better illustrations of Christ’s Body. We also participate in Christ’s death and resurrection when we are baptized. We are believers who have not seen Jesus with our eyes. We walk by faith, given a spirit of wisdom and revelation through our ancestors in faith, who like the travelers to Emmaus shared the story of the risen one opening the Scriptures, and being known in the breaking of bread.

Knowing this, we must commit our fragile bodies to work for justice and peace – not just for people, but for the whole creation, which has been hallowed. We must allow our spirits to be open to the thrust of grace. And how appropriate that in Biblical Greek, the word “spirit” is the same as the word for “breath.” ‘Never a breath you can afford to waste,’ through that lens, is a call to put our spirit, our energy, toward that which is good – as we explored at Synod, where our theme was “Hold fast to that which is good.”

Last verse:

“When you’re lovers in a dangerous time / Sometimes you’re made to feel as if your love’s a crime

But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight / Got to kick at the darkness ‘til it bleeds daylight

When you’re lovers in a dangerous time.”

It’s dangerous to proclaim that the Source of all life walked among us when we live in a world which often proclaims an absent watchmaker God, or atheistic chaos. It’s dangerous to proclaim that flesh is holy in a world which teaches us to force the body to conform to an ideal, which privileges young and able bodies over old or disabled ones, and which makes it easier to be cheap and wasteful than costly and gentle. It’s dangerous to proclaim that the world is not as it should be; that we are too enamoured of our divisions; that we should be more vulnerable, more open, more trusting; in a world which embraces promises of walls and security and conformity.

Sometimes, you might be made to feel like your love of the other, your work for justice, your stubborn insistence on communion with instead of rejection of your enemy, is a crime.

And that’s why I think it’s beautiful that in our passage today, Jesus implores the disciples to stay in the city until they are clothed with power. They do not go out into the wilderness, or return to their homes in gentle green Galilee, to prepare themselves to receive that power. They stay in the city – the dirty, dangerous city – until they are commissioned to go out in ever stranger and more dangerous places. It’s especially poignant to me that Jesus leads them out to Bethany to witness the Ascension: Bethany, which in 2004 was bisected by the West Bank wall and now requires a lengthy drive and a checkpoint to access. Not in the Temple, or the sacred city of Jerusalem, but Bethany, where Mary and Martha made their home, and where their descendants struggle to earn a living now that the main road has been split in two.

A broken place where a broken Christ ascends in glory.

A dangerous place, where a ragtag group of Apostles receive a message that is hopeful for us, but dangerous for an Empire: that sins can be forgiven, that freedom is possible, that darkness can bleed daylight.

We are lovers in a dangerous time. And how much more precious is love when the time is dangerous, just like light is so much more beautiful when surrounded by darkness.

Dear friends, with whom I have loved and lived and prayed, I implore you then to hold fast to what is good. Thank you for your love, to me and to the world in which you serve. I thank God for you, and I always will.

We’ll conclude with a prayer from William Sloane Coffin.

“May God grant us the courage never to sell ourselves short; the courage to risk something big for something good; the grace to know that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth, and too small for anything but love.”

Mar 02 | “Embrace the weird,” (Ash Wednesday sermon, March 1st 2017)

Five Ash Wednesdays ago I preached my very first sermon, as a seminary student in Vancouver’s vibrant West End.

I preached this in a highly diverse parish with a significant population of queer folks who had come to the Anglican Church as, for lack of a better word, refugees; sometimes from other countries and sometimes from other faiths. There were ex-Roman Catholics, ex-Fundamentalists, and immigrants who had fled to Canada so they could legally marry the people they loved. These were people who had known great endurance, afflictions, beatings, imprisonments, riots, and sleepless nights in a literal way. My sermons in that community were often full of comfort and assertion that being different was not only okay, but blessed. This kind of living out loud carried risks that these people knew all too well. They needed to hear from the church that Jesus knew them and loved them as they were, because for too long the church they knew had told them to live half-lives marked by deceit of themselves and others. I remember specifically calling attention to the King James translation of the Matthew passage which in verse 6 says, “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet.”

Lent can be seen as a downer season where we focus on the heaviness of our sins, our inadequacies, our failings. So often in mainstream media we Christians are painted as joyless taskmasters, boundary builders, and finger-waggers.

It was hard to mark Ash Wednesday in a community like the one I just told you about. It’s a little easier here, in this parish church: a church that seems to have little trouble accepting that Jesus loves them; a church where there are many children, who are still learning about the faith; a church where people commute from all over the city; a church which has known different but all too familiar struggles; a church which despite all of this might not be quite as comfortable thinking of itself as different or weird.

This can put us in a difficult place when the world around us already thinks we’re weird.

Because let’s face it, the church is a little weird, and this day is especially weird.

Imagine explaining this service to someone who had never heard of it before.

“Well, we talk about how sinful we are for a while, and then we talk about how we’re all going to die someday and someone smears some dirt on our foreheads to remind us of that, and then we have a bit of bread and wine and then we leave.”

That’s weird!

Even in an age where people Instagram their dinners; an age where a network stretching across the world features countless silly pictures of cats alongside serious discourse; an age where a reality TV star can…well – that’s incredibly weird.

It’s weird because we live in a culture that is somehow both fanatic about self-examination and averse to human frailty. Lumped in with all of society’s criticism of Christianity is an understandable but rather immature disowning of the idea of sin. Guilt over personal things like one’s health, one’s career, one’s failings in relationships abounds, but we tend to confine the expression of that inner guilt only to a therapist or to close friends. Collective guilt, however, is harder for folks to accept. Debates around the isms are rife with this; likewise in corporate cultures and families there is a tendency to pass blame around. Collective guilt might find expression in the fatalistic and Hobbesian outburst “People are scum,” but as soon as the church tries to move that outburst into a dialogue – constructive or destructive – a lot of people check out. Sin is then no longer metaphysical but too often merely physical or just another word for bigotry. But sin can be all three of these things, and more.

Perhaps the difficulty lies in imagining sin as a huge and inescapable force. Perhaps we would rather surrender utterly as hedonists or discard that part of our tradition altogether. Indeed, how did a belief like that stick around for so long?

Perhaps it was easier to accept one huge and inescapable force when another one was once much closer to us. Perhaps when death was more intimate in human life, when death was in the house and on the heart, it was easy to imagine sin possessing those same characteristics.

But there is no need to imagine sin this way. There is no need to believe that the power of sin or the power of death is bigger than God’s grace.

And that is why what we do here tonight is important. Instead of hiding our faces, we embrace our sin. We embrace our frailty, our enfleshedness, our pain, and our death, because Jesus did all of those things.

So often an embrace like this is forced upon us: in the death of loved ones, in persecution, in depression, in disease. So often we are inflicted with it.

Tonight, we are given a rare chance to embrace it willingly. The chance to not merely accept but to welcome it. The chance to know it’s coming and prepare. The chance to rejoice that for all its strange thorny tangles, this changeability is at its heart a gift, for a body that can go from health to sickness and death is a body that can change, that can grow, that can know greater love having known sadness and rage, and therefore choose to lead a new life, turning away from sin – even if it has to happen over and over and over.

Having accepted this willingly, we are free, free to choose purity, to choose patience, to choose kindness, to choose genuine love, to choose life. We are free to love God and neighbour, because we know that God’s love is with us in honour and dishonour. We are free to share with others the truth that has been given to us, and who would not want to share this truth?

So in leaving this place today, what shall we share? If we leave the ashes on our foreheads, we share a particular truth with the world. We share that we were in church, on a Wednesday night, talking about death and sin. We share some uncomfortable truths: that we believe that human beings are not capable of always being guided by reason to the right decision; that human beings have failings that will not be solved with fruit juice fasts or Facebook posts or fury; that human beings are subject to the laws of nature, which state that sometimes we get sick, and in the end we always die, no matter how many face creams or hair dyes we hoard; that Christians are called to proclaim these things, not simply to God in their closets but to the whole world, as uncomfortable as that might make us.

Friends, as a sinner to sinners, I entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God and embrace Ash Wednesday. Mindful of the one who teaches us to be humble in our acts of devotion: give of yourself and your things not as the world gives, to feed loneliness or the need to be seen, but in honesty and with the conviction that the world needs you, as you are. Pray in your heart not as the world prays, for those it deems unworthy to receive comeuppance or punishment, but to be set free from the idea that anyone must be worthy of love. Take up your fast, not as the world fasts, to chase an ideal of beauty or to have one’s health habits judged morally righteous and therefore worthy of acceptance, but from words that hurt and pile up into mundane molehills; from habits and treasures that distract from the treasures of the heart, of who you are and what you do for others that brings Christ wherever you go.

Embrace the weird.

Embrace your ashes.

Feb 19 | “A Telos People,” (Sermon, February 19th, 2017)

“Jesus said, ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” ³⁹But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; ⁴⁰and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; ⁴¹and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. ⁴²Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

43 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” ⁴⁴But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. ⁴⁶For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? ⁴⁷And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Matthew 5: 38-48

On my recent journey to the Holy Land, I did not travel alone. Someone else from this Diocese went with me: a very treasured friend of mine, the Reverend Lucy Price.

Lucy is an exceptional human being. I don’t really know anyone who doesn’t get on with her. She is warm and kind. She is incredibly creative – an accomplished visual artist whose preferred medium is spray paint and stencil. She helped Alex Wilson and me with an Lenten project one year at St. Paul’s in the West End, for which she created a series of exquisite figures at prayer using white paper and shades of black and grey, which we taped to the walls and furniture of the church.

Lucy has a wicked sense of humour. While on the trip, one morning, she suddenly turned to me and said, “Did the Executive Archdeacon ask you to write a report about me on this trip?” Alarmed, I said, “No.” “Oh,” she said. “Because he asked me to write one about you.” As I was just about to launch into a full scale panic attack, she suddenly went, “Haaa! You should have seen your face!” Born and raised in Newcastle, she sometimes lapses into a completely deadpan delivery before grinning to show me I’ve been had yet again.

She has always been there for me. We went to ACPO together to be assessed as candidates for the priesthood, barely three weeks after my father had died. When she heard me crying in my room that first night, she knocked on my door, and when I opened it she said nothing – just hugged me.

The one annoying thing about Lucy is what a devout and deeply committed Christian she is. Sometimes I’ve shared with her my misgivings or straight-up rage at someone who ticked me off.

Her 100% sincere response, every single time, is, “Tsk, Clare. You should pray for them.”

Who does that? Who prays for those who persecute them? Who loves their enemies?

We’re supposed to, but it seems impossible sometimes, I know.

There is so much to forgive. There is so much vitriol to tune out, so much garbage to clean up, so much blood and tears to wipe off of faces. How could any one person do it all? How could we possibly be perfect, as our Father is perfect?

David J. Lose, preacher and president of Lutheran Theological Seminary, cautions that there are two temptations in hearing today’s passage. One is to not take it seriously; to lament our inability to escape personal and corporate sin and bypass our own responsibility for trying to be better. The other is to take it too seriously, and believe that if we just struggle hard enough, we can bring about the salvation of the world by ourselves. This is a rehash of an ancient heresy called Pelagianism, the idea that we can overcome sin all on our own, without the aid of divine grace, that human beings have an innate ability to do so. Pelagius had good intentions – he wanted people not to wallow in the idea that their actions didn’t matter – but the logical extent of that conviction is that if we can’t conform to how we believe we should be, we’re just not trying hard enough. I think all of us know how dangerous that belief can be.

The possible antidote to these temptations, Lose proposes, is an exploration of the Greek word, telos, which in our passage is translated “perfect.” In English, this word implies conforming to an ideal type, an absence of all flaws or shortcomings. But there is an additional meaning which we don’t often take into account, a meaning which is also present in telos: the idea of completion, of reaching the intended outcome. Lose writes by way of description, “The telos of an arrow shot by an archer is to reach its target. The telos of a peach tree is to yield peaches.” He continues, “Read this way, Jesus’ words are less command than promise.”

This doesn’t let us off the hook…but neither does it subject us to a life of constant self-flagellation. We are not and never have been a people chained to chisels chipping endlessly away at our fallibility. We are a telos people, a people seeking light, seeking wholeness, seeking resurrection. We are called to be, in a sense, perichoretic, mimicking the eternal dance of the communal Triune God. We are called to change and to be changed. One cannot exist without the other. We are called to open doors and to let the doors of our souls be opened. We are called to let Lucy’s advice sink in, and to give her advice to each other.

And what better moment could there be in God’s time, God’s world, than this moment in our time, our world?

We know what it means to feel fractured. We know what it means to feel adrift. We know what it means to be pushed toward trust and healing. We know what it means to lean on each other, to lean on God. We know what it means to need open arms and wounded hands, and to offer those same things to each other and the world.

Right now, we hang in the space between the joyful season of incarnation and the introspective, penitential season of Lent, where we commit ourselves to re-examining our faults, our desires, and our true needs. We are preparing for the good work of Vestry next Sunday. We are praying for the hard work of our Canonical Committee, our Diocese, and our whole community in discerning a new rector for this parish church. We are praying for the world, which is full of posturing, paranoia, and pain. We are preparing for a brand new journey toward the Cross with Jesus, and a brand new celebration at the empty tomb with Mary Magdalene.

Everything is as it should be, even when the work is hard and tedious and unglamorous. When we can’t help but grumble, as wilderness-walkers always do, it is still as it should be. But we are called, as Lucy calls us, as Jesus calls us, to pray for the work, to pray for each other, to pray even for those who would sabotage the work of the Kingdom, to have faith that God’s will is being performed in this place, in this world.

We say we believe it, but do we?

Sometimes the words feel like ashes in our mouths…and yet even the disciples had their bad moments, and look what they accomplished. If you have never believed, if you have always had trouble believing in the eventual unfolding of cosmic grace, take comfort in the ultimate foolishness of our story: that one carpenter and his twelve friends changed the entire course of history with love, words, and wonder.

This is the true power of our God: That everyone from the devout to the atheists can find and do find hope in that story, as complicated as it gets when entangled with Empire.

In sure and steadfast hope in our call to be a telos people, seeking light, seeking wholeness, seeking resurrection, let us end with these words from civil rights veteran and Mennonite peacemaker Vincent Harding.

“All of us are being called
beyond
those comfortable places
where it’s easy
to be Christian.

That’s the key
for the 21st century.
To answer the voice
within us…
which says
‘do something for somebody.’ …

We can learn
to play on locked pianos
and to dream of worlds
that do not yet exist.”

So may it be for us, telos people of a telos God.

Amen.

Feb 05 | “Salt and Light,” (Sermon, February 5th, 2017)

13 ‘You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

14 ‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

17 ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. ¹⁸For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:13-20

I think today it might be important to just take a moment to rest in the peace that we share together in this place, to even do something a little un-Anglican, and take the hand of the person closest to you. Look at them. See them as one whom you love and who loves you. With your gaze, wish them peace, and when you are ready to let go of that hand, leave peace with them.

There are houses of prayer in this world where peace is elusive, where fear exists alongside faith, where those who come together to rest in God’s presence run the risk of sharing their sacred space with hate and bullets. There are people of God in this world who are afraid to leave their homes, who are afraid for their children, who are afraid that they are all alone. There is a whole world outside the doors of this beautiful place that is afraid and angry and lonely and hurting, a whole world that you and I, St. Philip’s in Dunbar, are being empowered to save, by the grace of God, in the Body of Christ, with the power of the Holy Spirit. The love you all embody will be what saves God’s precious world. We must believe this.

Last week, in this place, we heard the words of our Lord speaking blessing to the downtrodden and oppressed, the fearful and humble, the peacemakers and the persecuted. Today, we receive a call to be salt and light – simple things without which life could not exist on this planet, which do their work without the use of words or sound, simple things which simply are, for God’s sake.

Most of you know that I am recently returned to you after two weeks in the Holy Land. I met quite a few people on my travels who were salt and light, and they were the kind of salt in the eye, blinding light that a body could despair of ever matching. And yet, like the salt of the ocean and the light of the sun, they nurture life seemingly without effort, by the grace of God.

Bishara and me

The one I want to tell you about today is a Palestinian Anglican named Bishara Khoury. Bishara is the St. George’s College logistics officer and was our guide on the trip. He kept us on task and he kept us safe. He reminded us every day to make sure we had our passports and our “blue paper,” our travel visas, our personal sound systems, and our water. He told us what to do if soldiers came onto our bus at a checkpoint. He kept us going by calling, “Y’allah, St. George’s!” (Let’s go!) He told us to be careful of the pickpockets on the Mount of Olives. He told us we would never regret trying kanafeh, an unparalleled dessert of fried noodles, goat cheese, and honey – and he was right. He told us to “Open your hearts to the biggest size of it,” when we were being instructed on how to handle the Israeli security officials at the airport.

Most of all, he told us to always keep all the people of Jerusalem in our prayers, and he meant all of them.

Everyone loved Bishara. Everywhere he went, people greeted him, hugged him, shook his hand and smiled. He knew them all, called them “Habibi,” which is sort of like “dear” or “buddy.” He made jokes with Palestinian street vendors in Hebron and was crushed into a bear hug by an Israeli settler in Efrat. Whenever I said, “Sabaah al-kheyr; good morning, Bishara, how are you?” he always responded, “I am wonderful! Praise be to God!” In Advent I spoke about how Christian hope should be audacious. Bishara showed me what that looked like. He wished only joy to the people around him, and had complete faith that the prayers of God’s people would be answered and peace would come, and that it was worth any pain or struggle.

He was able to say that knowing full well the risks Christians run in the place of his birth. There are the simple denials, like entrance into Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, and then there are the greater risks, like the violence regularly visited upon Christians and Muslims by Jewish extremists in places like Nablus and Hebron, or like the Hezbollah rockets which occasionally hit the city of Haifa. All of these were places that we visited, and not only did Bishara help keep all of us safe, his connections took us into places most people never get a chance to see. He was not afraid of owning his identity. Bishara rested in the knowledge of God’s ultimate love. And he was not alone. This was a steadfast faith nourished well in the Anglican churches we visited. Father Hatem, the priest at St. Luke’s in Haifa, reminded us and his Arabic-speaking congregation repeatedly that Jesus came down from the mountain after teaching; that he didn’t remain up above everyone else but came down among the sick and unclean to do the work of healing.

The focus of that sermon was not prescription but assurance. God sees us. God comes to us. God wants to be near us. God is not put off by our sickness or our fear or our doubt. We know this because Jesus tells us in the Beatitudes that the ones who are blessed are the ones the world ignores or cuts down. Those too are not mere prescriptions but assurances.

Bishara believed that. He lived as though he believed it. He literally staked his life on it.

I consider myself to be a fairly faithful person…but my soul’s got nothing on Bishara.

Here on the secular West Coast, it’s not particularly risky to be a Christian. A Christian who wants to take risks here has to make them. It’s one thing to risk awkward dinner conversations. It’s another to risk death. I would argue that the church’s worst enemy in the West is societal apathy about our existence. Societal apathy isn’t what I’d call pleasant, but neither is it particularly painful either. And yet, for many faithful Western Christians, it’s the biggest boogeyman of all time.

Obviously I’m not suggesting we work to create a world where we are in the same boat as Christians in the Middle East. But I do think it’s imperative that we take time to consider the great gift of safety we have here, and use that to make some risks on behalf of the one who risked and lost his life for us…and in return gave us everything.

What does this look like? Maybe it looks like standing up for someone who’s being bullied. Maybe it’s giving something up that, on further contemplation, doesn’t contribute to life – ours or someone else’s. Maybe it’s smiling and talking to a homeless person on the street instead of walking by. Maybe it’s doing something special for someone you don’t really like that much.

It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. It just has to be sincere.

Bishara didn’t walk on water. But he had a heart big enough to love the whole world, and he left it wide open for anyone to respond how they saw fit. The stories he told detailed a life in which much had been lost, but this did not take away his saltiness; or put a bushel basket over his light. Instead it deepened his commitment to a cruciform life, a life lived for others in steadfast prayer and compassion, which I can categorically prove.

As I posted pictures from my trip on Facebook, I added one of the two of us, taken by the river Jordan after we renewed our baptismal vows. In the photo’s caption I wrote how special Bishara was to me and to all of us on that trip. I made sure I tagged him in the photo, so it would show up on his own Facebook page. That was a week ago, and there are already eight comments beneath the page, most of them from people I don’t know, affirming how special Bishara is and has been to them. So far he has responded personally to each one.

Friends, God has equipped us, Jesus calls us, and the Holy Spirit dwells in us. We won’t all be Bisharas. But if for one minute we can aim to embody the love of Jesus – the boundary-breaking, life-affirming, arms-wide-open love of the Anointed Son of God – then, friends, maybe we really will see the Kingdom of God breaking into the world.

Amen.

Dec 25 | “The Birth and the Wedding,” (Christmas Eve Sermon, December 24th 2016)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

John 1:1-14

“Kai to phos en te skotia phainei.”

In the darkness, the light is shining.

These words of John, in the original Greek, open the mystery of the incarnation to us, we seekers of glory, huddled hopefully together in these years so far removed from Bethlehem; we children of the kingdom singing hand-in-hand as the gulf between this night and the night of that dark, straw-scented shrine is erased in the searing light of heaven tumbling down to be folded into earth’s warm embrace.

“Kai to phos en te skotia phainei.”

In the darkness, the light is shining.

These magnific, metaphysical words, perhaps (ironically) the most well-known piece of Western arcana, far removed from the physicality of cattle and childbirth and curious onlookers, propose a birth utterly unlike any that can be effected by human endeavor; a birth overseen by no other eye save one, one capital E eye, around which the whole vortex of existence turns now, but once saw, wished, and witnessed utterly alone; a birth willed not out of lack or loneliness, not from the will of the flesh, but out of incomprehensibly unselfish desire for Other; a birth which heralded a dawn, a dawn which heralded no more and no less than Life in all its impossible, ineffable simplicity; a birth which heralded a wedding of dust and starlight.

“Kai to phos en te skotia phainei.”

In the darkness, the light is shining.

These mystical words, defiant in their pronouncement to a world which then and now has groaned under the weight of despair. These words which insist, “The light is shining. Here, now.” In the shadow of empire and imperialism. In the shadow of apathy and oppression. In the shadow of grand villainy and the ordinary pettiness that all of us suffer and inflict upon others. In the shadow of addiction and overdose. In the shadow of misunderstanding and miscommunication. In the shadow of assassination, extremism, and hatred. In the shadow of war and pax romana, false peace achieved not through reconciliation but through rivers of blood. In the shadow of sickness and death.

“Kai to phos en te skotia phainei.”

In the darkness, the light is shining.

In the darkness, which in the beginning was not fearful, not hated, for who could hate the gently thrumming darkness of the womb, or the deep night sky; in the darkness, like a bridegroom into his marriage chamber, comes the light. It does not obliterate the darkness. It shines within it, and although some read this as a sign of eternal struggle between a few virtuous souls and a ravenous world that feeds endlessly on rage, that belief can be shed like a chrysalis; for now, in these years so far removed from Bethlehem, we know that the nurturing darkness of interstellar space envelopes this fragile earth like a bridal veil.

On this night we are called, like John, to bear witness to the light; like Nicodemus, to pursue the light; like the Samaritan woman at the well, to be known to the light; like the blind man who received his sight at the pool of Siloam, to be bathed in the light; like Lazarus, to awaken to the light.

On this night, we join Christians, across the world and across time, gathered around a cradle which is no cradle but a trough, because God did not choose to know our riches but our poverty; did not choose to know servants but sheep and cattle; did not choose to know imperial annunciation but a hurried exit from wholesale slaughter as a refugee; did not choose anointing with oil at a kingly feast but baptism by water in the muddy Jordan; did not choose enthronement in a palace but on a cross.

On this night we are called to contemplate how the rough wood of a manger points to the rougher wood of that cross. We are called like disciples, knowing that disciples may deceive, disciples may desert, and disciples may die. We are called as moths are called to flame, as cosmic debris is called to the gravity of a young star, knowing that if we follow, we are sure to have our veil of darkness lifted by the bridegroom and to be consumed in God’s eternally burning flame of wisdom and love.

This is what it means to know the light, to be made one with the light, to be refined like gold in the cosmic cauldron of endless, self-emptying love.

This is what it means to be children of God, to do what God has done first, to love because God loved first.

This is what it means for heaven to be embraced, to be cradled, by earth; to offer ourselves up to be consumed even as we are offered the flesh of Christ to consume.

“Kai to phos en te skotia phainei.”

In the darkness, the light is shining.

The incarnate one awaits our welcome.

Children of earth, let us turn to face him, veiled in darkness as a bride.

For when we turn to face the divine, we discover that our flesh has become God’s bridal array.

Let us turn, and open our arms to our beloved, precious infant king.

Nov 30 | Lean in

There is so much pain, misunderstanding, lashing out, and disappointment these days. Remember, though, it has been this way forever, and if we didn’t feel it until now, then we’re holding a privilege somewhere.
So I am inviting all y’all to just lean into the season.

Christians? Lean into Advent. Lean into the prophecies, the conviction of occupied peoples, crushed beneath empires for so long, that a saviour was coming into the world. The world needs your voice.

– Originally posted on Facebook, November 30th 2016

Nov 13 | “God’s Story,” (Sermon, November 13th 2016)

Note: In between the 8am service and the 10am service, I made some very minor changes to this sermon based on feedback I received from two people. I also opened the 10am version with a sort of content warning, letting people know that I owned these words and I was a little afraid to share them, again based on my experience at the 8am and the advice of a mentor. No-one at the 10am had anything but positive feedback for me (at least, so far).

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’

They asked him, ‘Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?’ And he said, ‘Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and, “The time is near!” Do not go after them.

‘When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.’ Then he said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

‘But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.

Luke 21:5-19

“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.”

Yeeeaaah.

Oh friends. The world turns even while it burns. No lack of drama here.

But no lack of drama anywhere, ever. Human beings are hardwired for drama, hardwired to notice patterns first, and to create them where none exist, like seeing Jesus in a piece of toast. This is why everything is assigned a narrative, even when there is none.

It’s kind of like assembling a puzzle, but without the box cover picture to help us out. Or maybe there is one, but we drew it ourselves. Some of those pictures are especially bewitching. The redemption story. The rebellion story. The love story. The one with the happy ending. The one where we see ourselves. The one where we’re given a piece of wisdom.

And yet, so often, we forget that we painted those pictures on the box.

The disciples ask Jesus for a sign of the apocalypse he is describing. Now we can get caught up in the metaphysical stuff when we hear that word, so remember “apocalypse” means “revelation,” or “unveiling.” Today I want us to hear this word more neutrally, metaphorically. The disciples think his answer will be a puzzle piece they can fit into a picture they’ve already got, a picture they were given as children by their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents; a picture which they wove together from the pieces of Scripture, the vengeful and dramatic revelation of God to those who have oppressed their people for generations; a picture of God’s Anointed One who will ransom Israel in waves of blood and fire.

Jesus tells them that war is coming, but it is not the war the disciples are expecting. Instead of the Romans being cut down and flushed out, like the Egyptians at the Red Sea, they are to fall prey to judgement and the sword.

But hey, don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine. Yeah, right!

Later, of course, Jesus’ own life became the completed puzzle, and unfortunately that picture is just as horrendous. Instead of Jesus taking the Empire, the Empire takes Jesus outside the city walls and murders him brutally, as befits a criminal, not a king.

This picture is one that the disciples could never have put together on their own. In that context perhaps their betrayal of Jesus makes sense. It probably seemed to them a terrible mistake; that God was not the God of love and justice but a savage God of tyranny, or an inert God of helplessness; or worst of all, perhaps there was no God at all.

And yet.

So often we confuse human stories with God’s story. It’s not that they’re mutually exclusive. It’s that God’s story is so much bigger, bigger than anything we could possibly understand. There are so many more characters, so many more twists, so many more surprises and losses and triumphs than we can see at work in one lifetime.

Out of the ashes of shattered hope rises God’s actual story: a story of a new flood unleashed upon the earth, a flood of justice; a story of a new exodus, an exodus from the bondage of fear; a story of death being rolled up in rebirth, like a garment.

None of our human stories could have prepared us for this, although now that we know this story, it can be found written into the fabric of the universe – in the supernova, in the seed, in fallen beasts which provide food for the earth even in death, in human beings who give of themselves so that others may have life. By our endurance we gain our souls.

In the face of that story, all worry about the future becomes laughable.

Politics, if nothing else, teaches this, the futility of earthly kingdoms and the struggle for earthly power. “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?” Despite all of the anxiety and rage and self-righteousness, despite all of the thinkpieces a person could read and all of the frothing news anchors a person could hear, we the Church must not fall prey to those stories of fear. We come together to traffic in the metaphysical non-sense that so much of our world now rejects. We do it to laugh at time and its limitations, to make a mockery of empire while yet speaking out against its injustice. We do it to encounter something larger than ourselves, something we believe is a name above every other name. We do it knowing that all empires have an end. The Church was born in the shadow of empire, and that empire, once so mighty and dreadful, rose, declined, and fell, just like all of the others. The hidden truth of the apocalypse is that all crowns succumb to rust but one – and that one cannot rust, because dead thorns do not put forth blossoms…and even that, we say to our detractors, is up for debate.

There will be days when the kind of strength and confidence we need for the work of telling this story will be thin and ragged. But we do not do it alone – not as individuals, not even as the Church. The great preacher Fred Craddock reminds us, “Not even the community of faith is adequate as the arena of Christ’s saving work. The whole creation stands at the window eagerly awaiting the arrival of the day of redemption for the children of God.”

Friends, if this is so, then we should have great joy indeed. For then any apocalypse would not be the pouring out of God’s great jars of wrath. A revelation of this God has far more in common with the moment when a husband lifts his bride’s veil on their wedding day. What have we to fear, knowing what we know: that Christ came into the world to save sinners, to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to let the captive go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour – even in this place, even in a world where war claims so many of our brightest and best; where fear can dictate policy; where children go hungry and the earth groans under the weight of our excesses; where our brothers and sisters who worship the God of Abraham are too often met with suspicion and vitriol; where love and victims of violence are so often subject to harsh scrutiny while the greatest sins are excused; where a little girl who asks to go to school can be shot while a rich man can admit freely to lies and assaults and go unquestioned; where so much sadness goes unhealed and so much beauty goes unknown.

This place. Not another. Not a paradise or a planet free of all evil.

God chose this. God chooses this, every day.

God is at the cross-roads and beckons like a lover. God invited, and continues to invite us, to live and tell this story of love breaking down the walls of death and hate.

Today I call to you, children of God. I call to you, beloved of God: Accept that invitation. Accept even if you’re not sure. Accept even if you’re afraid. Accept even if you’re ticked off, or sad, or hurting, or your life is going just fine, thank you. Accept even if you’ve got a thing in the morning. Accept even if you think, or you know, that you’ll forget or turn away later. Accept even if you know it will be hard. Especially if you know it will be hard. Because taking your first breath was hard too, but you did it, and you wouldn’t take that back, would you? Because giving birth to anything in life is harder still, but we all do it, because someone must for beauty to be shared and known.

Exchange the bread of anxiety for the bread of his body and the wine of your wedding banquet.

You are the Church, and you are his bride. Let your veil be lifted. Let him see your face. Let him hear your voice. For your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.

You who are here by love, for love, cry aloud in this place, and to the whole world: Love wins, and Love never ends.

Alleluia.

Nov 06 | “Jesus and Zacchaeus,” (Sermon, October 30th, 2016)

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycomore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’

Luke 19:1-10

Today, as we approach the feast of All Saints and All Souls, I am going to tell you a story.

It is a story of an unconventional saint, a saint whom an English translation error in our Gospel makes into a reformed sinner. The one who is seen by Jesus in this story is painted as one who has decided to live a new life of generosity, when the Greek actually states that he, unlike many other rich characters in Luke’s Gospel, is already living as though the Kingdom of God has come near.

So today, to celebrate this community’s good work which often goes unsung; the faithful stewardship of all believers living on earth and in the next world; the healing presence that discovers us and makes a home among us when we live as though we truly believe that all things are reconciled, I offer you this story, perhaps even our story.

It had been a long day already and it wasn’t over by a long shot, and yet Zacchaeus lingered over his papers, tracing lines of numbers until his head ached and his eyes felt as if they’d been juggled in his skull like dice in a palm.

If only that racket outside would hush up for a minute. It had been growing steadily louder from a dull buzz to a chaotic jumble like a flock of birds fighting over scraps in the marketplace.

Perhaps, he thought wryly, God’s armies had returned to tear down the walls of Jericho once again.

He would love to go and tell them to tone it down, but what was the use? He was a chief tax collector, reviled and scorned. And did he think he could escape those long-ago childhood chants of “Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus, can’t you see? / Better climb up that sycamore tree.”

“Oh one time, one time I did that,” he grumbled.

He had tried to forget that chant – it had been decades – but his work had only dulled the taunts to resentful mutters when his back was turned.

Annoyed, he stared at the documents in front of him. His father didn’t give him the name Zacchaeus – “righteous one” – for nothing. His father had always taught him to be responsible with the blessings of life. Zacchaeus therefore went out of his way to give money to the poor, and every month he scanned his documents meticulously to search for discrepancies in his income in order to right them later, as he was doing now.

As he got older, he had learned to be gracious when others spat at him, or called him names, or worst of all when the rich, the bulk of his clients, haggled with him over taxes owed on their lavish property. Worse, they convinced the poorer people in town that he was defrauding them, and so they too scorned him.

All he wanted was a friend, someone who would greet him with a smile instead of an averted glance or an angry sneer, who would be happy to see him, who would share in stories and laughter and a good meal.

But fat chance of that. It had been years since anyone had offered him a kind word or invited him over.

Maybe he really should just be as bad as they thought he was. What would be the difference?

His brooding silence was interrupted as a huge cheer welled up from the crowd outside. The headache which had been burbling resentfully behind his eyes awoke with a roar.

Without thinking, he got up and stomped out the door. He would see to this problem. Maybe then he would get some respect.

He burst outside and blinked like a mole, for surrounding him was a riotous wall of colour and sound. He wondered for a moment if he had been right and the armies of God had broken into Jericho. The street was packed with people, maybe everyone in town.

He noticed the crowd was following something, something beyond the wall of bodies that he couldn’t see. He wiggled his way through and was pushed along for a while like a salmon headed upstream. Before he knew it he found himself in the town square. His cheeks burned as he saw the old sycamore tree in the distance, but he soon forgot about it as shouts from the crowd morphed into words he could understand:

“Jesus, over here! Jesus, let me touch you! Jesus, heal my son! Jesus, save us!”

“Who the heck is Jesus?” Zacchaeus grumped to no-one in particular.

There was yet another spontaneous outburst from the crowd, so loud Zacchaeus thought it might blast him through a wall. In the middle of it he heard a man shout, “I can see! I can see, praise be to God!”

Now Zacchaeus was really interested, but he knew that hopping and elbow-jabbing would never do. He had to do something drastic.

He cut his eyes at the hateful sycamore and grimaced.

Whatever was going on had better be worth seeing.

He turned tail and ran ahead of the crowd as it boiled along the street like an angry river. For a moment he thought he understood how the Egyptian armies might have felt as the waters of the Red Sea crashed toward them.

He got to the sycamore tree and stared up at its branches reluctantly. Those childish voices from so long ago suddenly seemed very loud.

But as he heard the crowd approach he felt a twinge of exhilaration, and something else less familiar, something small and hopeful that he thought had been stolen from him long ago.

He scrambled up the tree, wincing as he heard the rip of his expensive embroidered tunic snagging a branch. But at last he was high enough to see over the crowd.

This Jesus character was nothing much to look at. He seemed to be a healer, perhaps a teacher as well, but there was no nothing otherworldly about the simple peasant clothes, the mop of unruly dark hair, or the soft brown eyes.

Zacchaeus’ heart sank. He felt sure that everyone knew he was there, that they were all laughing at him. “Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus, can’t you see? / Better climb up that sycamore tree.”

And then – oh horrors! – the brown eyes turned up and fixed on him in the tree.

Zacchaeus cringed as he waited for the crowd to follow the healer’s eyes and see him up the sycamore. Now he would hear that awful chant, you bet. And the teacher would surely laugh along, or shuffle past with averted eyes, embarrassed. Which one was worse?

All of these thoughts winked out of existence as a voice came to his ears, cutting through the noise of the crowd.

“Zacchaeus!”

“Huh!” Zacchaeus barked, too surprised to pretend at dignity.

“Get down from there!” It was the healer, grinning up at him, as though they were sharing an inside joke. “I’m coming to your house today!”

Zacchaeus felt the world around him fade like a piece of parchment left out in the sun. All he could see was the warm, slightly cheeky smile.

The unspoken prayer had been answered. Here was his friend. He had come. How was this possible?

As he marveled at this, he realized two things. One, perhaps it wasn’t for him to understand. Two, he had made it down and out of the tree just as fast as he had done all of those years ago. Maybe even faster.

A hush fell over the crowd. Several of his rich clients were there and openly glared at Zacchaeus. He heard someone mutter, “Seriously? He’s going to his house? That cheat?”

Jesus’ eyes were full of kindness. It was such a contrast to the eyes Zacchaeus saw over his shoulder. Something about that incongruity made something snap.

Zacchaeus looked at Jesus and spoke slowly and clearly. “I don’t cheat. I give half of my possessions to the poor, and I pay back any discrepancies.”

One of the rich landowners suddenly shouted, “Lord, he says he will do these things in the future, but he never actually does them!”

Zacchaeus gritted his teeth, but when he looked back at his new friend, his anger melted away. “If there are any discrepancies, I always pay people back, plus twenty percent, just like the Torah says I should. And you know what?” he added, “This time, if I find any discrepancies, I will pay back eighty percent.”

Jesus threw his head back and laughed. There was no trace of irony or spite in it. Zacchaeus smiled, confused and yet delighted.

Jesus drew Zacchaeus into a sideways hug as he looked back at the crowd.

“Today, salvation has come to his house!” he said, and his voice was just as joyful as the earlier howl of the crowd.

Friends, if you’ll permit me, I’d like to add just one small piece to Luke’s lovely story.

So perhaps, as they left the crowd behind, Zacchaeus blurted, “Lord, stay in my house forever!”

“I’m sorry,” Jesus said gently, “I can only stop for the night. I’m on my way to Jerusalem. I have very important business there.”

“Are you going for Passover? Can’t you come back after?”

The brown eyes grew sad…but only for a moment. “Let’s not talk about it now. Kill the fatted calf and bring out the wine. We have all the time we need.”

So too do we, friends. Let us linger in this autumn time and remember those friends we have treasured. Let us linger in this house and break bread together.

Love, the guest, is on the way.