Michael Seiler

Tag: Gods Plan

  • Do Not Fear. Only Believe.

    Some of you know that I raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society by doing a bike ride every year in the fall. The goal of these rides is to raise enough money to fund research into a cure for MS.

    At every event, there are riders who have been diagnosed with MS, who wear jerseys that say, “I Ride With MS.” The idea is to raise awareness of how many people in this country live with MS, and to give people an opportunity to meet those who are living with the disease and to learn about their story. In short, these jerseys create an opportunity for conversation and building relationships.

    For almost everyone with MS, the initial diagnosis brings with it an enormous amount of fear, because no one can know if their illness will progress rapidly, or if it will progress slowly. Moreover, most of the people with MS understand the financial burden that is involved with the illness – money that they will be spending on tests, on doctor’s visits, or in lost income because their symptoms make it impossible to work on some days.

    Some people lose a lot of money because they go to all the doctors that they can find that promise some sort of cure – even cures that are not approved by the medical community. And others take part in clinical trials, becoming guinea pigs for untested treatments and medications because they so desperately want to find a cure. Sometimes these trials go well, and other times, their issues are compounded with unexpected side-effects.

    One person living with MS had a story of their own initial fear at their diagnosis, and how they prayed every day for “healing.” When they went to an older and wiser individual to speak about this fear, this person told them, “Usually, when we talk about healing, what we really mean to say is that we want to be ‘cured.’ But, healing often involves a whole lot more than just being ‘cured’ of an illness. It’s just that for most of us, ‘healing’ has become synonymous with being ‘cured.’ Are you willing to accept healing, or just a cure?”

    Obviously, part of the reason that so many of us think of being healed as “being cured” is because of these stories that we find in the Gospel reading today. The entire Gospel is about miraculous cures of illness at the hands of Jesus.

    The first story involves Jairus, a leader of the Synagogue, and a very wealthy and important man. He comes to Jesus, falls at his feet, and begs him to come and heal his little daughter. “Come lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”

    And the next sentence is very simple. It says, “So he went with him.” That is, Jesus went with Jairus, walking toward his house, where his little daughter lay sick, simply because Jairus asked him to. And as they were walking, so many people crowded around Jesus that one translation says they “thronged him.” 

    Now, suddenly, Mark interrupts one story to bring us another, so we know that Mark thought this second story was important for his readers and listeners. At this point, he tells us the story of a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. It seems that she had endured the ancient equivalent of Clinical Trials at the hands of physicians. She had probably been a guinea pig for all sorts of treatments at the hands of these doctors, and nothing had helped. According to the Jewish purity laws, she would have been considered unclean because of her bleeding. But more importantly, despite this, the real factor that would have made her an outcast was that she was poor. She had spent all of her money on doctors. More so than the purity laws, she would have been looked down on and dismissed for being poor. People would have ostracized her from society for both being sick and being poor. We can see that she was desperate to find a cure so that she could once again become part of the community, and spend time with those she knew.

    She was so desperate that she was willing to break all of these purity laws, pushing in through the crowd of people so that she could “only touch his clothes.” She knew that if she touched his cloak, she would be made well. She risked punishment at the hands of the leaders of the people – in fact, people very much like this very important leader of the Synagogue, Jairus himself – by essentially making all the people she touched on the way to Jesus “ritually unclean.” But she pushed on, touched Jesus’ cloak. 

    And was instantly cured.

    It’s at this moment that Jesus stops suddenly, turns around in the crowd, and says, “Who touched me?”

    I imagine there were at least a few people who immediately jumped back, lifted up their hands and said, “I’m not touching you.” “Not me.” “Huh – uh. I would never.” Even the disciples are completely confused, and practically mock Jesus with their question that amounts to “Lord, you see everyone is pressing in on you, why on earth are you asking ‘Who touched me?’ I mean, everyone is touching you.”

    But the woman knew what was up. She knew that he was speaking about her, because she knew that she had been cured of her bleeding. And so, it says, she came in fear and trembling. That is, she thought that she was going to be punished for what she had done. So she tells him everything that she had done. But instead of punishing her, Jesus says to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

    Jesus was on his way to heal the daughter of a wealthy and important leader of the people, a father who had told Jesus that “all I need is for you to lay your hands on her, and my daughter will be healed.” He had stepped out in faith; he would have known what the other leaders of the people were saying about Jesus, and what they really thought about him. But because he knew the mighty works that Jesus was doing, and because he was desperate for the healing of his daughter, he persisted. And this woman, just like the leader of the people, persisted, despite the social norms and purity laws.

    If we were to stop here in the Gospel with these snippets of story, we might have a very fine motivational speech about pushing on, about persisting in the face of doubt and in the face of societal norms or opposition and just having mountains of faith. It’s almost as if you can hear the motivational speakers saying, “If you can believe it, you can achieve it!”

    The trouble with that sort of thinking is that it places all the burden of our own healing squarely upon our own shoulders. That is, if these stories were intended to teach us that being cured of our ailments was only about our faith, it would mean that our God would only heal us if we didn’t waver in our belief.

    Years ago, there were some faith healers who came through a church I used to belong to. These people came in, and prayed for people to be cured of illnesses, of various addictions, and other ailments. Some people were miraculously healed. And others were not. One of the people who had not been healed asked one of these people why she had not been healed, and his response to her was flippant: “You weren’t healed because you didn’t have enough faith.” 

    Obviously she was devastated. It was all her fault. She didn’t believe enough. Jesus didn’t want to heal her because she had not persisted enough, not pressed in enough, not believed enough that she could be cured. It took her months of conversations with other believers for her to finally realize that sometimes God answers prayers – and other times, God simply does not do what we want. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the measure of our faith. This woman, a pillar of faith in our community, had doubted herself, and worse, had doubted the faithful heart of God, because of a careless word by someone who blamed her for God’s failure to act according to what she desired.

    To return to our story, Jesus knew that someone had touched him with a deliberate purpose, with a drive to be cured, and he knew that “power had gone out from him.” The important thing is that he stopped, not to punish the woman, but to build a relationship with her. On his way to heal the daughter of a wealthy man, he stops to spend time with one of his own. He turns to her, and calls this woman, “Daughter.” He wanted to know the story behind her persistence. If Jesus didn’t care, he could have just kept walking to Jairus’ house. But instead, he stops, lets the woman tell him her story, and sends her on her way. Notice that he declared her healed in the middle of the people. That means that not only did he heal her physically, but he also restored her place in society, and restored her as a member of the community. He showed her that he cared for her beyond just her physical well-being. He wanted her to be healed and restored in all aspects of her life, this woman he calls his “Daughter.” 

    If it had been about how we are to have an abundance of faith and persist in our beliefs, then this story would have stopped without Jesus turning to this woman. It would have stopped with her being healed, and the story continued on with Jairus and his daughter without this moment of Jesus speaking with the woman. Ignoring her and her story would have solidified that it is all about our own faith, and about persisting in the face of doubts and societal norms. It would have been all about us, and what we do, rather than about God, and how much God cares for each and every one of us. It would have made God into our servant, into nothing more than a lucky rabbit’s foot, or other magic talisman that one could touch to get miraculous healing. 

    However, on the way to Jairus’ house, Jesus stops to speak to a poor woman, a cast out from society, to hear her story, and restore her to abundant life within her community. That is the nature of Christ. He wants to know us, and he wants what is best for us. It may have started with this woman’s persistence in pushing in toward Jesus to be healed, but it ended with a blessing of peace and reconciliation.

    After this, the story continues on. On their way, people from Jairus’ house come and tell him that his daughter is already dead, and that he shouldn’t bother Jesus any longer. What’s the point after all? How can anything be done for someone who has died? It would have been a perfectly logical conclusion for Jairus to draw regarding his daughter. She’s dead. It didn’t work. There’s no point anymore. Why don’t we just stop now?

    But Jesus, sensing this, tells him, “Do not fear. Only believe.” 

    We, of course, know the rest of the story. How Jesus raises this little girl from the dead. He restores a little girl to life, and restores a family, to the amazement of all that witnessed it.

    Again, however, the miraculous healing is not the only intent of this story. True, the miraculous healing shows us God’s power over sickness and death, but more important are the words that Jesus said: “Do not fear. Only believe.”

    “Do not fear. Only believe.”

    “Do. Not. Fear.”

    This is not just a commandment to Jairus, the father in this story, but a commandment given to us as well. 

    But, in the face of so many things in this world that can cause us to fear, this is a hard task. Our minds often spin out of control with all the possible scenarios that can cause us harm or damage. That can cause us loss of face or social standing. Things that can cause others to ostracize us. Things that can bring us to the brink of death. We fear all of these things. Even though God tells us not to. And tells us only to believe.

    The woman was afraid that she would be punished for her desperate persistence in pushing forward her own agenda. And Jesus stopped to grant her peace, and restore her to health and life within her community. Jairus was afraid that nothing more could be done for his daughter, and Jesus told him not to fear, and then restored his daughter, his family, and all of them to the faithful community. 

    In each case, Jesus was concerned with more than just the physical healing. He wanted them to be healed and restored to an abundant life among the people of their community. He forged a relationship with them, and restored them to a place of relationship with others. They were healed as well as cured.

    To return to the person with MS that I mentioned at the beginning, the one who had received the question, “Are you willing to accept healing, or just a cure?” What was the outcome of that question, I wondered? Their response was, “I still have MS, but I am no longer afraid of the consequences of the disease, nor am I afraid of what might happen. Instead, I count my blessings every day, and praise God for each and every healthy moment. And I thank God for every moment with those I love. God has healed me. It isn’t a cure, but I understand that God is with me, God wants what is best for me, and God is in charge of everything, even in this nasty disease. For that I am forever grateful.”

    This person had indeed been healed.

    Just like the woman in this story, they went from being afraid of the present and the future, to doing as Jesus commanded the woman:

    They went in peace, because their faith had made them well.

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on June 23, 2024.]

  • That Your Joy May Be Complete

    In today’s Gospel, we see once again John’s emphasis on Love: loving our neighbors, loving one another, even to the point that we might lay down our lives for a friend. Jesus says that we are to do this, to love one another so that our joy may be complete! This commandment to love one another: its intention is to bring us joy! There’s several things in this passage that we need to understand, the first of which is that the commandment to love one another is just another way of saying “Love your neighbor.” And, if we remember the story of the Good Samaritan, we realize that our neighbor is everyone who is not us. 

    The second thing about this passage is the definition of the word “complete.” It brings with it the ideas of “maturity,” of “wholeness,” and of the “full realization of some form of potential.” In other words, it doesn’t just mean “finished,” but that something has accomplished the purpose for which God created it.

    So, what God is saying is that our Joy will attain the purpose that God has intended for us, if – and when – we love one another. It’s a very simple commandment, but it is not always easy to implement.

    In the sermon on the mount, Jesus had even told his disciples to “Love their enemies,” and to “Pray for those that persecute you.” Very simple commandments, but once again, not at all easy to implement. Love God, Love your neighbor, Love one another, Love even your enemies. Jesus would not have told us – his disciples – to love our enemies unless he knew that the command to love those who didn’t love us would bring us joy.

    So how do we do this? How do we love our neighbor, when this world increasingly accepts and justifies violence? You will find all sorts of rhetoric that is intended to make us afraid, because fear provokes anger. The rhetoric is intended to inflame our passions, to make us mad – mad enough to do something about it – preferably with sticks and stones, or even with guns and knives.  You see the rhetoric plastered across newspapers, television and, more often, in posts on various social media sites, sometimes going so far as to call for violence or even death to those that hold a different political viewpoint.

    Honestly, this sort of rhetoric is nothing new. We’ve been dealing with it in this world for as long as there has been written history. But as Christians, we need to be able to step back from this sort of rhetoric, and ask ourselves whether what we are being told is intended to make us afraid, and therefore angry, because we know that when we are afraid, and when we are angry, we are unable to love one another.

    Are we able to trust God enough to be able to consider the option that Love might be a better way?

    In your bulletin today, you’ll see a comic. For those that don’t have a bulletin, I’ll describe it right quick. Jesus tells his disciples he’s got to go, and that they should remember what he told them. The disciples reflect, and realize that it’s pretty much, Love God, and Love your Neighbor. Then one of them says, “Well, that seems pretty simple. I don’t see how we can mess th–” And he gets cut off by another disciple who says, “Uh-oh. Here come the theologians.”

    While we might be able to name theologians off the top of our heads, like Augustine, Luther, Cranmer, or Barth, what most of us don’t realize is that each of us engages in theology on a daily basis. We read the Bible, or hear portions of scripture read, and we interpret them through our own lenses – and that makes us theologians. We can either engage in theology that interprets the words of God and asks us to shape our lives to the simple commands to love God and love our neighbor. Or, we can look for loopholes. Good theology calls for us to transform our lives to conform to God’s will, and to Jesus’ teaching to love God and neighbor. Bad theology looks for loopholes, and seeks to justify our behavior, so that we do not need to change anything about ourselves. Bad theology looks for ways where we get to decide who our neighbors are, so that we don’t need to love our enemies, or pray for those who persecute us.

    Love one another, as I have loved you.

    A very, very simple commandment. It’s just not very easy to implement. Because, you know why? We all like to feel morally superior, we all like to win an argument, we all like to retaliate with power and control, rather than love and compassion. We hate the idea of having to apologize, because saying sorry means we have to acknowledge we were wrong. 

    We all love the idea of justice, and people getting what we think they deserve. But given our human nature, we would rather take justice into our own hands for a quick fix, rather than let the hand of God work through the love that God’s disciples share with the world. In case you’re wondering, that’s us – we are the hands of God in this world. 

    The concept of loving our neighbor is a simple one, but actually loving our neighbors is not always easy.

    Some of you may remember this. This story has stuck with me since the very first time I heard it:  In 2006, there was a shooting in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. A man barged into an Amish schoolhouse and shot ten 10 young girls, killing 5 of them. Then he shot himself.

    These Amish people, only one day after having performed the funeral services for their own daughters, attended the funeral service of the man who had killed their children. They all hugged the widow, and then hugged the man’s children. Later on, they raised money to support this man’s family.

    And you can probably guess the reactions to this act of compassion: People were outraged! Many of them accused the Amish of not caring that their own kids died, since they had “Gotten over the tragedy too quickly.” Some people claimed that justice would be allowing the Amish to kill the children of the man that murdered their own – a sentiment that many people agreed to. They pushed violent retribution, rather than love.

    The Amish, however, responded that they were indeed still grieving for their own children, and that they recognized that the family of the shooter had lost a husband and a father, and that that family was grieving too. It was an incredible display of compassion in the midst of their own grief.

    When asked how they could possibly forgive someone who had killed their children and love the family of that same man, the Amish responded: “God has commanded us to love one another. That is what we are doing.” 

    When asked if it was difficult, the answer was, “Of course it is difficult. We grieve for our loss every day, but we have been commanded to forgive sins and to love one another. That is a choice we have to make every single day.”

    The psychologist Erich Fromm, in his book, “The Art of Loving,” said this:

    Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.

    In other words, Feelings come and go, so how can God command us to have feelings of love for our neighbor? The simple answer is that God doesn’t. God commands us to love, which is an active decision to behave a particular way, as evidenced by the Amish in response to the murder of their daughters. They clearly didn’t have feelings of love. Instead, they chose to express love through strength of will.

    The Amish held a belief that they could – and would – see something beautiful even if they loved their neighbor despite the murder of their children. They had internalized the good news that Jesus said we should love our neighbors so that our joy might be complete!

    The Gospel today says, “Love one another, as I have loved you.” We know that the way that Jesus loved us was through a sacrificial death on a cross. The Gospel then goes on to say, that “greater love has no one, than to lay down their life for a friend.” We often like to think of this laying down of our lives as a heroic act – an act of martyrdom when others are facing persecution – and that we would step in and take their place. We like it because of the finality of that decision, the understanding that it is “giving everything” for someone else.

    But more often than not, laying down one’s life for a friend means sacrificial forgiveness, the decision to love, and a willingness to walk away from the rhetoric that pulls our hearts toward hatred and judgment. It’s never an easy task to make the decision to try and understand people and see things from their viewpoint, which is the pathway toward forgiveness and love. It is easy, however, to pass judgment and to refuse to forgive. 

    A hard heart takes very little damage.

    William James, the psychologist, said, “Action seems to follow feeling, but really, actions and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.”

    Or, in other words, “Feelings come from action.” Or, “What we do, we come to feel.” If we choose to support rhetoric that calls for violence upon others, then we will be more likely to actually commit violence, because we will begin to feel hatred and live in judgment. If we choose to respond in forgiveness, love, and compassion, then we will be more likely to feel the emotion of love, because feelings follow actions.

    We need to only look to the Amish again to see this. We can see the results that their difficult decision of compassion in the face of evil had on their community.

    In an open letter to the Amish community that offered her comfort during the aftermath of the shooting, the wife of the shooter had this to say: “Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need. Gifts you’ve given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe. Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world, and for this we sincerely thank you.”

    The letter continued, saying “Please know that our hearts have been broken by all that has happened. We are filled with sorrow for all of our Amish neighbors whom we have loved and continue to love. We know there are many hard days ahead for all the families who lost loved ones, and so we will continue to put our hope and trust in the God of all comfort, as we all seek to rebuild our lives.”1

    Now, all these years later, the family of the shooter, and the families of the victims have not only become friends, but have remained friends, and visit one another regularly, caring for the victims and sharing their faith in the God of Love.

    Through the active decision to engage in sacrificial love – to display compassion – this community was brought to the very maturity of joy that God has promised for those that love one another. 

    The command to love our neighbor is a simple one.

    It’s just not always easy to do.

    But if we choose the path of love, we can stand on God’s promise that our joy will be made complete.

    1. https://web.archive.org/web/20061021080225/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/16/wamish16.xml

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on May 5, 2024.]

  • Get Behind Me

    Several years ago, the editor in chief of Christianity Today recounted several conversations that he had had with pastors in his denomination. The pastors told him that when they preached from the Sermon on the Mount – you know, things like “Blessed are the meek,” “Blessed are the peacemakers,” “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” or especially, “Turn the other cheek.” When they preached from the Sermon on the Mount, people would come up to them afterwards and say, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” But when the pastors would say, “I was literally just quoting the words of Jesus,” the people would not say, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize that.” Instead, they would say something to the effect of, “Okay, but that won’t work anymore. That’s weak.”1

    This is essentially what Peter did with Jesus in today’s Gospel. Peter, and most other people of his time hated the Roman oppressors in their land, and they were expecting a messiah that would come in with a mighty fist and power unseen before, and wipe out the enemies of Israel.

    But then Jesus starts talking about how the Son of Man must suffer and die for the sake of all humanity, and Peter begins to rebuke him, essentially saying, “That’s not going to work, Jesus. That’s weak.”

    And we see how well that worked out for Peter.

    “Get behind me Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

    Get behind me Satan! When we hear that we may immediately think that what Jesus is saying is, “Get outta here!” “Scram!” or “Buzz off!” But that’s not what Jesus is saying to Peter at all. He is reminding Peter to align himself in the proper order, to literally get behind Jesus. You see, Peter had an agenda, and he wanted to make sure that Jesus did what Peter wanted. In other words, he wanted Jesus to stand behind him, to follow him, and not the other way around. 

    Last week we heard about Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. And in Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus is tempted by the devil, he says, “Away with you Satan!” He doesn’t tell the devil to get behind him like he tells Peter, he simply tells Satan to go, to leave him. And Satan leaves him.

    There’s an interesting lesson that we can learn from these two interactions between Jesus and Satan, and Jesus and Peter.

    When Jesus rebukes Satan and commands him to leave, Satan leaves. He does as Christ says. Christ is superior to Satan and his minions, and they obey him, even though they don’t want to. I won’t unpack that any more, as I imagine you realize the implications of that for your own life.

    Secondly, when Jesus rebukes Peter, he is making us aware that we can do the work of evil in this world, simply by trying to push through our own agendas. That is, we know what God’s agenda is for humanity, and when we impose our own wills over and against the will of God, we can be seen as acting for – or at the very least – allowing evil to manifest in the world.

    If we look in the Book of Common Prayer, in the Catechism, we are told that “the mission of the church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” And, that the Church pursues its mission as it “promotes justice, peace, and love.” And finally, that the ministers of the church, which include everyone, not just those curious ordained folk, but everyone, is to “carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world.”

    Reconciliation. That is a word we often hear only in Lent, when we are reminded that the Episcopal Church does in fact have the Rite of Reconciliation, which most people know of as Confession.

    This work of reconciliation is what happens when Jesus turns to Peter and says, “Get behind me Satan!” He convicts Peter of Peter’s wrong motivations, but then offers him the reconciling gesture that Peter might subordinate himself to Christ, and get behind him, or follow him. Or, to put it more bluntly: You have made an error Peter, but you are still my disciple. Get behind me, and follow me, and follow my teachings.

    Reconciliation, however, encompasses more than just a personal forgiveness of sins and a reconciliation of ourselves to God. The work of Reconciliation that the church is called to, and we ourselves are called to, is to reconcile not just the world to God, but to reconcile ourselves to each other; to promote peace; to promote love; and to promote justice.

    When we fail to do those things, when we allow our own agendas to take over our thoughts, our minds, and our actions; when we allow our own agendas to supersede the work of Christ in this world; when we allow our own agendas to creep up and push out the reconciling work of the Church; when our own agenda causes us apathy and indifference to war, to bigotry and to injustice simply because it doesn’t affect us personally – that is when we find ourselves allowing the work of evil in this world. Or worse, by simply aligning ourselves with those who promote war, bigotry and injustice, even if we don’t say or do anything ourselves, we may find ourselves actively working for those terrible evils in this world. And then, we might just hear Jesus saying the same words to us as he did to Peter: “Get behind me Satan!”

    The Good News is that it never just ends there. Just like Peter did, we too can get behind Jesus. We can accept the offer of reconciliation from Christ, and align ourselves with God’s mission in this world, and follow the teachings of Christ even when we find them more difficult than doing our own thing. 

    And that is when things will really get exciting.

    We know from our reading of Scripture that Peter did a few more things that were rather impulsive, and contrary to Jesus’ work – things like cutting off a man’s ear, or denying that he even knew Jesus – but in the end, Peter was known as one of the leaders of the Church. 

    This was what Jesus was talking about after having corrected Peter. He tells all his disciples that if they want to be his disciples, they must take up their crosses and follow Him. We must deny ourselves, and lose our lives. Not literally, mind you. Specifically, we must lose those things that work against God’s mission in this world; a mission that we are all called to; a mission of striving for peace, of striving for justice, of sharing God’s love, so that together we continue Christ’s work of reconciling the world to God.

    Our agendas need to be placed on the cross and sacrificed for the greater good of God’s redeeming work in this world. When we lose our lives for the sake of the Gospel, that is when we find it, Jesus says. What will it profit us if we follow our own agendas and “gain the whole world,” as he says; that is, what good is it if we are powerful enough to run the world, but forfeit our lives by thinking of the things of man, rather than the things of heaven?

    One of the best known saints in our canon was a wealthy young playboy who stood to inherit his father’s immense wealth. He spent his youth living an irresponsible life, caring only for his own desires. At the time, joining the military was considered “glamorous,” and so he joined up. But after spending a year as a prisoner of war, he had a profound change of heart, a conversion. He renounced his former life of extravagance after seeing how the poor in his city lived, and then dedicated his life to helping the sick, the homeless, and to rebuilding churches in and around his hometown.

    Here was a young man who had, by all accounts, all the trappings of this world, from riches, power, prestige, and the freedom to search for pleasure and meaning by whatever means he fancied. But instead of continuing to live for himself, he surrendered everything, took a vow of poverty, and dedicated himself to the work of God. 

    Some might say he lost his life for the sake of the Gospel. He willingly surrendered his position of power and wealth for poverty and weakness.

    Some of you may have already realized that I am talking about St. Francis of Assisi. And you may know that through his work he founded a religious order that has changed the world with its focus on serving the poor and the marginalized.

    Imagine if he had never surrendered those things to God, and instead had sought to preserve his lifestyle at all costs? He would have remained just a blip in the history of Assisi, another playboy going about the business of pursuing his own pleasure, constantly trying to find out who he was meant to be, but never finding out God’s true purpose for his life.

    For St. Francis, Jesus telling him to “Get behind me” meant that he had to give up his wealth and power. But for each of us, the idea of “Get behind me” means something entirely different, and it is something that only we can know for ourselves. It does not have to mean giving up wealth, or prestige, as it did for Francis. It can mean something entirely different to you than it did to Francis, or your neighbor in the pew next to you.But I can tell you, that when we hand over those things that we still want to control for ourselves, when we hand over the reins to God and make God’s agenda our own agenda, that is when we begin to flourish and thrive, when we begin to grow into the joy of God’s ultimate plan for our lives. We may not become saints like Peter and Francis, but we will be living in joy and purpose when God says, “Get behind me,” and we say, “Sure thing, Lord.”

    1. The New Republic, August 10, 2023

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on February 25, 2024.]

  • The New New, Now Now

    My sister lives in Zambia, and I had the pleasure of visiting her there in 2010, and also again in 2016 for her wedding. One of the first things I noticed while there, was the way people approach time. One of the strangest things to get used to is people telling you that they will be coming over “now.” In my mind, that means that they will be there as soon as possible. But this is not the case. If someone lives on the other end of town, and they are beginning to drive over to your place, they will still tell you that they will be there “now,” even though the drive to your house might be an hour or two. If someone wants to convey that they are practically on your doorstep, they tell you that they will be there “now now,” which indicates that they will be there within the next five minutes.

    Clearly, this concept of time feels considerably more laid back and fluid than the sense of time that people like me – who measure productivity in minutes – are used to. It certainly teaches you to slow down, and experience life not in finite increments of time, but to experience life as a measure of the relationships with those around you.

    The reason this came to mind recently was because I had been musing on the concept of God’s time, and how God might often say “Yes, but not now,” when answering prayer. “Not now” clearly implies “not at this time.” But, it also implies that what you have prayed for will happen “at some time,” though without any indication as to when exactly that might be. 

    It could be a month or two.
    It could be a year or two. 
    It could be a decade or more.

    There simply is no way of knowing when the appointed time will arrive, when God has merely said, “Not now.”

    The other night, in a Bible Study on Paul’s letter to the Colossians, we were talking about the concept of putting on new clothes based on Colossians chapter 3. Paul is speaking of transformation, of sanctification, as we follow Christ. But while being created – and renewed – in the image of God might be an immediate thing, transforming into the likeness of Christ takes considerably more time. 

    God might view us as perfect and blameless through Christ’s work on the cross, but we don’t immediately begin to transform into the likeness of Christ. Just like you are not naked one moment, and then fully clothed the next, your transformation into who and what God has created you to be is like putting on one article of clothing at a time.

    Repeatedly, throughout Colossians, Paul brings up things that the people in Colossae have been tempted to follow, or perhaps have already turned toward, some new form of religion or spirituality. And Paul keeps reminding them that whatever they are searching for, whatever they are seeking, they already have everything they need to find wisdom, or knowledge, or peace.

    What they have is Christ. They have the faith that Paul and others shared with them. If they seek Christ, they will find what they are looking for, Paul tells them over and over. Nothing more is required; there is no need to continually seek the new.

    And today, we are not so different from the Colossians. 

    I’ve seen books that hype the new way to experience the divine, new methods for seeking God, new ways to enter into that state of bliss that helps us to commune with God. 

    And these books always seem to sell well. They sell well, because the old, tried and true methods for finding God have been tried, and found not to be true.

    These methods were found not to be true because people did not give it enough time. They wanted the new experience with Christ, the new interaction with God, the new ecstasy from a meeting with the Divine. They wanted a deep, intimate relationship with God.

    And they wanted it “now now.”

    They wanted it at the snap of their fingers. 
    They wanted it in bite sized microwavable chunks of flavor bombs, without the time and preparation that goes into a true three-star Michelin meal.
    They wanted ready-to-wear, instead of tailor-made.

    I say “they.” But we are all in the same boat. Seeking quick answers to our prayers, fast solutions to our struggles, immediate resolutions to our spiritual puzzles. 

    And why wouldn’t we? The vast majority of our current culture is built around the concept of getting things when we want them, as we want them. Want to watch a movie? Stream it. Want a new pair of shoes? Order them online, and have them delivered today. Want a home-made meal, without all the prep work? Subscribe to a meal in a box program that gets delivered to your door.

    The immediacy of our culture has trained us to constantly be on the go, getting things now, and doing things we want to do at the slightest inclination or provocation.

    We can, at the click of a button, have the new new, “now now.”

    But that is rarely how it works with God. Just like with those people who tell us that they are coming over “now” when they still have a whole city to traverse, we must lean into the only thing that matters when it comes to our faith: the relationship. Just as we put on one article of clothing at a time, a relationship grows, one meeting at a time. God is always available, and all that God requires of us is that we draw near.

    And then, when we have drawn near to a God who desires that relationship with us, and have grown in that relationship, one step at a time, we may finally hear God say what we’ve been waiting for: “It is time. Now now.”

  • Going through the motions

    Daily Office Readings – Old Testament ( Jonah 3:1 – 4:11 )

    Years ago, during one spring break at seminary, I loaded up all my gear and headed out to the desert for some solitary camping. During that time I hoped to read, to write, to hike, to just spend some time in quiet contemplation and free myself from the stress of work and school.

    It took a few days for my mind to quiet down. To rid itself of all the things I had planned when I got back, things I needed to do before the next quarter started, and other things going on in my personal life that could wait for resolution until I got back. On the third morning, I woke up, had my coffee, went for a hike, and came back to the campsite to read. More so than the last few days, my mind felt quiet and distraction-free enough to really spend some time reading both the Bible and some pastoral theology books I had brought with me.

    As I sat there with a book next to the coals from the morning fire, a wind began to blow. And it continued to blow, and it got stronger and stronger, blowing sand into my pages, and blowing the pages over so that I had to keep my hand firmly on the book to be able to read at all. I finally got so frustrated I shouted at the wind, at God, at the universe, “Really?!?! I’m finally in the right mindset to read, and now this? Stop with the sand blowing already.”

    And God answered.

    “Sure. And do you want me to grow you a shade tree too, Jonah?”

    Despite the slap in the face, and never one to shy away from sarcasm, I responded, “Sure, Lord, I’d love some shade. But you’ll just take it away from me tomorrow, right?”

    Silence.

    No answer necessary.

    Jonah had at first run away from God (Jonah 1), because he didn’t want to go to the people of Nineveh. And in today’s reading, we find out why. Jonah prophesied, the people repented, and God spared the people of Nineveh because they turned from their wickedness. But Jonah is angry, because “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”

    Jonah was angry because the work that God had asked him to do seemed like just going through the motions. He already knew that this would be the outcome, so why did he have to travel across the world, just to watch people do what he expected them to do? How was this not a punishment for Jonah? He was the only one who had to endure any kind of discomfort in order to watch the inevitable happen, so why wouldn’t he be mad, right? Wasn’t his anger at God justified because he was asked to merely go through the motions?

    At the time of my conversation with God in the desert, I had been avoiding doing something I knew I needed to do. In my mind, the results of my actions were a foregone conclusion. The task involved correcting someone, and I didn’t look forward to the inevitable anger and moral outrage that would come my way. But I knew it needed to happen, even if I felt that I knew the outcome of the conversation. And since I knew the inevitable outcome of the conversation, why did it matter when the conversation happened, I thought. And besides, maybe by putting off the conversation, someone else might feel prompted to have the conversation in my place… I could hope, right?

    But the conversation was for me to have, not for someone else, just as Jonah was the one who needed to travel to Nineveh. In the end, the conversation went just as I expected, with me feeling a bit more like Jonah, minus the repentance of the Ninevites. But the conversation was a necessity.

    Going through the motions, as unnecessary as it might seem sometimes, is part of our work. Nineveh needed to hear God’s condemnation against it, so that it’s people could repent and avoid their fate. Sometimes we are the only ones who see a problem, and know we need to confront it. Sometimes we know that people will not change even when confronted, but our action is still required, futile though it may seem.

  • Is that a goad?

    Daily Office Readings – New Testament ( Acts 26:1-23 )

    In today’s reading, Paul is defending himself against the accusations made against him in the court of King Agrippa. During his defense, he recounts the story of his conversion. A great light, brighter than the sun, shone around him and his companions and they all fell to the ground. Then a voice said to Paul, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.”

    I’ve read this phrase multiple times, and each time I see a slightly different meaning in those words. This phrase pushed me to get a degree in theology because I knew at the time that that was what I needed to do, despite my own desires. I have often said that I went to seminary, kicking and screaming, and so I understand how Paul may have felt when confronted by God on the road to Damascus. At other times in my life, I’ve seen myself reflected in this phrase as I remained in a situation for far longer than I should have simply because I kept holding out hope for a better future, despite knowing that God was prompting me in a new direction.

    This phrase – kicking against the goads – draws out the image of a head-strong animal. There is an animal being prodded with a sharp stick to get it to do what the person in charge wants. The animal does not like what is happening, and sometimes, the animal kicks against the goad, which in turn just means that it is stuck even deeper with the sharp end of the stick. In other words, it hurt the animal to go against the prodding of the one in charge. It hurt them more than if they had just followed the promptings. Their pain was increased by ignoring the prompting of the Divine.

    And this was Paul. As a Pharisee, under the authority of the Chief Priest, he pursued the followers of the Way to foreign countries and cities, with a relentless perseverance because he was “so furiously enraged” at them. And then when he became a follower of Christ, Paul pursued the conversion of people in foreign countries and cities with the same relentless perseverance that he showed in persecuting Christians before this moment beneath the bright light on the road to Damascus.

    Since hope is a key component of perseverance, I have to wonder what kept Paul moving forward in his furious purging of Christians from the world. This story of Paul’s conversion suggests to me that God had already been goading Paul in several ways. What exactly was Paul hoping for that he would choose to overlook the ways in which God was goading him? God had to show up in a mighty way to finally make it impossible for Paul to follow his own plan. Blinded, Paul would listen, he would hear the truth. Without God showing up with this incredible display of power, Paul would have continued on the path of destruction, killing more and more of those that followed Christ. He would have continued rounding up people with that unrelenting perseverance he is known for.

    In the Shawshank Redemption, Andy and Ellis are having a conversation over lunch. Andy has just gotten out of solitary confinement, and Andy mentions that he survived it by having hope. Ellis responds with, “Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

    One of the curious things about this conversation is that both Andy and Ellis are right about hope.

    Hope can keep you moving forward in a difficult situation, when the deck seems stacked against you. It can make an unbearable situation bearable, or at the very least, survivable. That is the hope that Andy was talking about. He held on to the idea that things could become better, that there was a glimmer of hope, even in the darkest cell. He was describing perseverance.

    But hope can also keep you moving forward in a difficult situation, when the deck seems stacked against you, when the odds are never in your favor. It can make an unbearable situation bearable by constantly providing new straws to grasp at that provide just enough strength for one more day. This is the hope that Ellis was talking about. Holding on to the futile idea of greener pastures when reality showed no hope of ever seeing those pastures is enough to warp one’s sense of reality. Ellis was describing insanity, the cyclical futility of grasping at new straws, simply to maintain a fantasy.

    Today again, this phrase jumped out at me. It reminds me again to take a long, hard look at my own desires, my own situation. It reminds me again to discern my current situation, and see if I am firmly in the camp of those who persevere, or have pitched a tent in the fields of insanity.