Michael Seiler

Tag: Sacrifice

  • We Can Do Nothing Else

    Several years ago, I read a book on finances, which talked about the concept of creating multiple streams of income – some of which we would call “side hustles” today –  but included things like investing and real estate. I learned the concepts and told all of my friends about this, because it made sense.

    A few years later, when I had a chance to meet up with one of these friends, I found out that he had taken the concepts that I had shared with him, and had purchased a bar with a restaurant. Outside of his day job as a teacher, he was running a successful bar, even though the extra work was difficult and time-consuming. He thanked me for having shared that information with him, because he felt it made his life better, and allowed him the extra money to engage his goal of traveling the world.

    Several years later, I was on a morning walk with my dad, and told him this story, both about how I had shared the good news with my friend, and how my friend had taken that knowledge and put it into practice. And then, as dads do, my father asked the question: “If this was such wonderful information, why did your friend do this, but you didn’t?” It only took me a moment to respond: “Well, I saw no purpose other than to put a few extra shekels in my coin bag. That’s not really a worthy purpose. While I knew that the information was true, I didn’t believe that the effort was worth the gain.” 

    Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps during World War II, documented this need for purpose in his book, Man’s Search For Meaning. Even in the horrible treatment they received, the torture that they experienced, Frankl noticed that among his fellow prisoners, those that had a purpose beyond the immediate day to day were the ones who were able to endure torture, suffering and humiliation. He wrote that the greatest courage that a person can have is the courage to suffer. And, as he watched these other prisoners, he came to the realization that “those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’”

    Today’s Gospel is the conclusion of the Bread of Life Discourse. Jesus has fed people with miraculous food, shaken their understanding of the Messiah, and offered them freedom. The people tried to forcibly make Jesus their king, and Jesus ran away, because this is not how God intended to save the world. He offered them eternal life through his own flesh, and told them that they only needed to believe in him and follow his example. He would not become their king, because God had other plans.

    And the people complained, and walked away. They quit being his disciples.

    It is important to realize that they did not reject Jesus because of who Jesus was. After all, they had seen him turn water into wine, walk on water, and feed 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish. They had seen him heal people, and restore them to their lives within the community. They had watched him make the claim that he was the Messiah. And then, they tried to force him to become their king. They obviously were pretty excited about Jesus. 

    So what gives?

    We know that from time to time, in this region of the world, religious zealots would arise and amass a following, and the people often believed that these leaders would free them from the oppressive Roman rule. These people would mount an uprising against the Roman overlords – and were routinely defeated. These leaders were the strongest men in the room, those who wanted to bring a hammer to the oppressors, those who wanted to free the oppressed, and restore Israel to its former glory. And so when Jesus comes in, heals people, performs miracles, and feeds a group of people the size of an army, they obviously think: this one is it – this is the right one to make it happen for us. Finally!

    But Jesus tells them that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood. That if his body, the temple, is destroyed, he will raise it again in three days. That he will give his life as a salvation for many. That he will offer himself as a sacrifice. And he will do it out of compassion and love for all the people of the world. He would offer them freedom, if they just believed in him, and did as he did.

    And the people said: “Nope! Not going to happen.” And they walked away.

    To put this into Viktor Frank’s framework, they did not reject the “why” of this situation. They did not reject Jesus. They did not reject the “Why” of the Messiah. They did not reject the idea that a Messiah was to come, or the purpose of the Messiah. What they rejected was the “How.” They rejected “how” Jesus would offer the freedom and salvation he promised but not the “why.”

    Or, to put it a different way, they did not believe that the “how” was worth the “why.” They did not believe that the extra effort was worth the gain.

    By rejecting the “how,” these people were really saying, “We want to control how you provide for us, how you offer freedom, and how you save the world. We don’t want it to happen your way, we want it to happen our way.” And because Jesus was unmoving, because Jesus ran away from them when they tried to make him their king by force, because Jesus continued to offer his way, rather than theirs, they rejected his leadership and they left.

    Last week we talked about all the ways in which we consume Jesus, with the ultimate goal being that we take his words and the example of his life as the ultimate model for our own.  But, as one commentator puts it, 

    “The more we realize that faith calls us to consume the body and blood of Christ, to embrace his death and resurrection and to emulate his manner of living and dying for others, the more difficult the journey of faith becomes.”1

    I’ve watched people make religion about rules and regulations. I’ve watched them reduce the entirety of the faith down to the task of upholding those rules. Because rules are easy. Rules tell you where the good stops and the bad starts. Rules tell you where you will find light and where you will find darkness. They make simple the distinctions between right and wrong. 

    And more importantly, the rules are easy to control. And when we can control the rules, we can control people. We can define what it means to follow Christ or deny him, and we can tell people when they are wrong, or welcome them when they are right.

    But life is never that clear. It is a muddy mess. And the path to Jesus is never as clear as “do this and you’ll be right with God. Do that, and God will erase your name from the book of life.” Our lives are a twisted, convoluted mess of “hows” trying to move toward the “why” of Jesus.  And we will never be able to uphold the entirety of any set of rules and regulations just by sheer force of will. And trying to uphold the “how” that we – or others – have set is why so many people look at our religion and say, “This is a difficult teaching. Who can accept it?” And they walk away. Not from God, but from that version of God that would ask them to conform exactly as we define it. Because that is the example we have given. When we choose a religion of rules over the sacrifice, compassion and love of Christ, we have done exactly the same: we have turned to Jesus and said, “This is a difficult teaching. How can we accept it?” and walked away. And people are simply following our example, because we have rejected the example of Christ, and instead have chosen an easy “how.”

    But thankfully, that is not the “how” that Jesus envisioned. Jesus did not make a set of rules and tell us we had better – or else.

    Instead, as our eucharistic prayer says:

    “when we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy, sent Jesus Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.

    He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself, in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.” (Eucharistic Prayer A)

    Jesus came not to be the strong man, he came to be the lamb. He didn’t come to destroy the world. He didn’t come to conquer, but to sacrifice. All so that he could reconcile the world to God.

    God, through Jesus, defined not only the “why,” but also the “how.” Jesus said that the life that he would give for the salvation of humanity is his own, and his life is all about sacrifice, compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation. 

    This is the model of “how” and this is the way in which we are to approach the world. We are to offer our own lives as a sacrifice for others, we are to show compassion, forgiveness, and seek reconciliation where possible. Our lives are to be a beacon of light in a dark world, and our words, actions and attitudes are to be the bread of life to those around us – through the example of sacrifice that Jesus set for us. Because that example leads to eternal life. But more importantly, that example leads to abundant life, and it leads to peace and joy in this life as well.

    This is what the disciples understood. When Jesus asked if they would leave him too, Peter’s response was less of a “We don’t have anywhere else to go,” and more of a “Now that we see and understand, we can do nothing else but follow you.”

    Let us pray that we too can do nothing else.

    1. Feasting on the Word, Year B, Proper 16, p. 383

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

  • Who’s Your Timmy?

    I’d like for you all to imagine yourself sitting in a doctor’s office exam room, waiting to speak to a new doctor about an upcoming surgery. As you glance around the room, you see all the medical posters about the internal organs, the skeletal system, and a poster displaying the inner workings of the heart. The exam room is clean, and professional looking, and everything about the staff that brought you in, and the ambience of this room puts your mind at ease. This new doctor, you think, will definitely be able to take care of me.

    Then there is a knock at the door, and in walks a young man wearing scrubs and soft, comfortable shoes. Something at the back of your mind sparks up a bit, and you think he looks vaguely familiar. Is this the doctor? Or an assistant?

    “I thought that was you! It’s Tim,” the young man says, “It’s so good to see you again!” He shakes your hand and says, “I used to hang out with your kids all the time, back in elementary school.”

    And suddenly you recognize him. Timmy? The same Timmy that couldn’t figure out how to use a can opener? The same Timmy that used to knock things over in your house all the time because he was so incredibly clumsy? The same Timmy that flunked 3rd grade? The same Timmy that would ignore what adults told him and do what he wanted to? The same Timmy that lied whenever you caught him doing something wrong? That Timmy!? 

    Doctor Tim sits down in the chair, and says to you, “I’m so happy you’re here. You’re in good hands with me. Let me assure you that I will do my absolute best with your open heart surgery!”

    I’m sure that your immediate reaction at that point would likely be – “My surgery is  a bit more involved than using a can opener. Not gonna happen, Timmy.”

    Just like with Timmy and his amazing ability to break things, the people that knew Jesus were saying things like:

    “I remember his parents, and how he got lost in Jerusalem when he was 12! They had to come back and find him!”

    “I remember one time he built a table with one short leg, and it used to wobble constantly!”

    “Come on now! This cannot be the Messiah! I used to babysit him!”

    And they started to grumble among themselves. Those who were opposed to Jesus, because of how they knew him way back when.

    Two weeks ago, we heard the story that set up this entire talk about the Bread of Life, the feeding of the five thousand. It was there that we learned that this entire conversation is set within the context of the Passover. And that Passover setting was intended to evoke the ideas of freedom from slavery, and a new promise of God’s provision. The reference to Manna from heaven in last week’s Gospel passage also brings the readers of John’s Gospel back to the idea that something new is going on. Something big is happening. 

    We learned last week that by calling himself the Bread of Life, Jesus had upended their view of the Messiah, and shifted their thinking from seeing God’s provision as merely physical and for their present reality, to thinking of God’s provision for all eternity, and seeing that God’s freedom and provision is intended for all people, for the entire world. All that people needed to do was to believe in him.

    But here’s the problem – at least for some of the people. To believe in Jesus meant to give up control, to give up power, and to give up the hope of future power. And we all know that people in power never want to relinquish that power willingly. This is why they start grumbling amongst themselves. They heard the claims that Jesus made, they followed his logic about eternal life, and they recognized that Jesus’ way of saving the world would require that they surrender their current power, and any hope of future power – because a Messiah that refused to be made king by force would be a Messiah that would require them to make sacrifices. And so, of course, they grumble.

    The interesting thing to note here, is that the word that John uses for “grumbling” is the same word that is used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures for when the people “grumbled” to Moses about not having bread to eat. They “grumbled” about being hungry, and they wished that God had let them die in Egypt instead of bringing them into the wilderness. And so, God provided manna – that is, bread from heaven – and their ancestors ate from it. John is trying to make a direct correlation between the people of Israel on their exodus out of Egypt to this moment in time, when some of the people confronted with the true Bread of Heaven in the person of Jesus grow skeptical.

    Which makes Jesus’ response about manna so much more poignant and direct.

    He had already told the people not to work for the bread that perishes, but to work for the food that endures for eternal life. And now he takes their comment about their ancestors ate Manna from heaven, and says:

    “Yes. Your ancestors ate manna from heaven. But guess what? They still died.”

    Which is to say, “All that you are working for, this earthly power, this earthly wealth, this desire that the Messiah comes and does what you want – all of that is still just thinking about the here and now, this present age. Don’t do that. Work for the things that are eternal and will carry you through more than just this life by believing that God has sent me.”

    And the people grumbled.

    One of the phrases that may be going through your mind right now is, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” And that is definitely what is going on with Jesus and those who opposed him. Just like we wouldn’t want a clumsy little oaf like Timmy doing our open heart surgery, these people didn’t want to wrap their heads around the idea that the future of their faith revolved around a carpenter’s son, someone they had known all of his life.

    For those of us who come to church, we may be thinking, “Oh good! I already believe in Jesus. I’m not opposed to thinking of Jesus as the spiritual manna from heaven.”

    But there is more to the Bread of Life than just the belief that Christ died and rose again to begin our reconciliation with God. There are the promises that Christ made for those that follow him, such as peace, joy, love and patience. There is the matter of life, eternal life, and even, the promise that Christ came that we have “abundant life.”

    What is this abundant life?

    Every Sunday, here at St. Alban’s, we sing the song, “Let there be peace on earth,” right before the Passing of the Peace. And the words within that song state that if God is our creator, then we are all siblings, and all of us are children of God.

    What that means is that the promise of abundant life, the promise of peace, of joy, of patience and forgiveness of sins has been inherited by all of us. We are all living members of the body of Christ and heirs of God’s eternal kingdom.

    In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, our New Testament passage today, he says:

    Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

    God has offered all these promises through believing in Jesus, the Bread of Life, and you, and I, and each of us, has become an heir in God’s kingdom because of it. And if each of us is an heir, then we ought to treat each other as royalty and respect the dignity of everyone. It is when we are imitators of God, that this abundant life begins to take hold, and this blessed ideal of peace, love, forbearance and tolerance starts to take shape in our minds and we can almost touch and feel and see how an abundant life could form among a community of believers. We can smell the sweet fragrance of love, joy, peace and gentleness wafting through the room, as we imagine what a life of sacrifice for God and each other can manifest in our lives and community.

    And then Timmy walks in. Clumsy, oafish, not-so-bright Timmy. Timmy, whom we know just a little too well, and whom we cannot trust to do the right thing. Timmy, who irritates us at our core, and makes us not just skeptical, but whose actions grab our heart and harden it, so that we directly oppose the idea that anyone should show any sort of love and patience to him. Timmy, whom we wish could be taught a lesson.

    For Timmy’s sake, of course. 

    This response is the exact same response that those who opposed Jesus had. Just like them, we do not wish to give up any kind of power, and we most certainly do not want to imitate God, and offer ourselves as a sacrifice and fragrant offering for God’s work of reconciling the world to himself. Especially if the person who needs to see our sacrifice is Timmy.

    But this is precisely the work that is needed.

    And this is why we too, sometimes, grumble and complain, and stand in opposition of the work that God is doing in this world. 

    We all have at least one Timmy in our lives. Sometimes multiple Timmys. We need to identify the Timmy in our life, and recognize that they are just as much a child of God as we are. That they have inherited eternal life and forgiveness of sin, just like we have. That they have the promise of eternal life, just like we do. And we need to try and understand why we are so opposed to them and what they do – because our opposition is often more based on what’s going on inside of us, than what’s going on with Timmy.

    And then, we offer them the Bread of Life through the same compassion and love, through the same grace and mercy that Jesus offered us when he offered his life for our sake.

    Because then we will in fact, begin to smell the sweet fragrance of Christ in our midst.

    And we will recognize that the Bread of Life is food for everyone.

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on August 11, 2024.]

  • While We Were Still Sinners

    If Lent is the time of year when we try to put ourselves into Jesus’ shoes, in an attempt to understand his suffering, then Holy Week – the week of the Passion – is that week when we realize just how much Jesus suffered – and that no amount of giving up chocolate will ever help us realize the extent of Jesus’ sacrifice.

    But Holy Week is more than just an attempt at understanding Jesus’ suffering.

    Holy Week is the week during which we realize that we are not only the recipients of all the benefits of Christ’s death on the cross, but we are also the accusers, the bystanders who did nothing, the soldiers who revelled in the violence, and the crowd that yelled “Crucify him!”

    It’s easy for us to look past our own sinfulness and blame those who were there at the time calling for his death, and to see ourselves as innocent.

    It’s easy for us to look past our own sinfulness and focus on the resurrection and see only the benefits that Jesus’ death on the cross brings to us.

    It’s easy to look past our own sinfulness and see this week of Jesus’ passion as merely an intellectual exercise in theology and the cycles of the church year.

    It is much less easy for us to admit that the reason Jesus was on the cross in the first place was because we are the ones who yell, “Crucify him!”

    The reason for Holy Week is for us to learn to grapple with the fact that Christ died for me – a sinner – and that each time I seek my own will instead of the will of God, each time I distort my relationship with God, other people, and all creation,1 that I am the one who yells, “Crucify Him!”

    Or worse, I am the soldier who condemns him, who beats him, who holds him down and drives the nail into his hands and into his feet.

    Palm Sunday especially helps us to understand the wild fluctuations of our human nature. One moment we are joyous and proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, celebrating him as a king, waving palms and laying them down in his path – and the next we are the angry crowd, the betrayers, the accusers, yelling, “Crucify Him!” 

    We see the beauty in what Christ has done, and can do, but we also recognize that what Christ wants of us is not entirely what we want to do. We see the joy of our salvation in the person of Jesus, but we don’t want to hand over the reins to our life just yet, Or maybe not entirely. We see the good that a life of discipleship brings, but still grasp firmly to our own desires, dipping our toes in the river without ever jumping in completely and letting the flow of God’s love take us where we ought to be.

    It is when we come to this understanding of the depth of our ability as humans to focus on our own desires over and against the will of God that we realize just how powerful Jesus’ death on the cross really is. It is when we recognize the depth of our sin and understand just how much our sin can keep us from the loving arms of God that we begin to feel the truth of the meaning of this death on the cross:

    God loves me because while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me.

    The centurion in today’s gospel reading, a soldier who commanded his men to crucify Jesus, who stood by and watched as what was supposed to be just another convicted criminal being put to death for their crimes, this centurion had a moment of true understanding when he saw all that was going on around him, realized that he had a part in it all, and looked up at the broken body of Jesus and said: 

    “Truly, this man was the Son of God!”

    How much our savior loves us. That while we are still sinners, he dies for us.

    1. Book of Common Prayer, Catechism: Sin and Redemption, p. 848
    2. “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8, NRSV

    [This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on March 24, 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.]

  • Un(ash)amed

    Daily Office – Gospel ( Luke 18:19-14 )

    During a Bible study on Paul’s letter to the Colossians last night, we were discussing the persecution that Paul expected in his life, given his call to serve God. This then led to the question of whether anyone had ever experienced persecution or seen it in any form in their life. Given that we live in a country that claims its origins in the Christian faith, the likelihood of that seemed unlikely, but one of the participants mentioned that some people are afraid to even say a prayer of grace before a meal when eating in a restaurant to avoid people making fun of them. And then another piped up that that would never stop them from doing so.

    Naturally, the conversation turned toward a person’s motivation, and that some people pray in restaurants for show. We realized, of course, that this is not something that we ourselves can determine, just by viewing others pray, and that the question of motivation needs to come from the individual who is doing the praying.

    The Daily Office Gospel reading today starts off Lent with just that sort of call to self-examination, by recounting the story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector who went to the temple to pray.

    He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

    Luke 18:9-14

    What motivates us to enter into these self-congratulatory states of inflated valuations of our own self-worth? We may indeed be better than some – by our own standards – but by our own standards we are also worse than others (Matt 7:1-2). Yet we still try and congratulate ourselves on our own righteousness, when standing before the God who reconciled us to Himself, no less. 

    In a country known for its abundance – and even its excesses – we often tend to view the abundant life that Jesus promised as one displayed in financial and material blessings, or the accumulation of power and prestige. And so, despite our better judgements, we view our state in life as having to do with the level of our own righteousness. And so we put that righteousness on display, just as our Pharisee in the Gospel reading today, because then others will know just how #blessed we truly are. We might not be ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but sometimes we are shameless. Shameless in our self-promotion. Shameless in displays of our own righteousness.

    We may flaunt pictures on social media of the ash on our foreheads (#ashwednesday) to be thankful for the work God has done for – and in – us, or we may display pictures of our ash covered foreheads to let others know the extent of our own righteousness. We may proudly walk around today, displaying our piety, or we may walk about humbly, ready to discuss our the joy of our salvation with anyone who asks why there’s a dirty smudge on our head.

    Only we will know our own motivations.

    But that’s the goal of Lent, isn’t it? To help us to look inward, to reflect upon our lives, and to determine whether we are seeking to remember that the work of our salvation comes from God alone. To help us determine that our worth comes not from anything that we can do, or anything that we have done, but instead that we have only been presented holy and blameless and irreproachable before God through Christ’s death (Col. 1:19-22).