Good News for Challenging Times

The Reverend Mary Marguerite Kohn

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church Feb 3, 2008

Last Sunday After Epiphany (Transfiguration)

Exodus 24:12-18 Psalm 99

Philippians 3:7-14 Matthew: 17:1-9

These are exciting and challenging times for St. Peter’s. At our annual meeting there was a very spirited discussion regarding the best use for our property. As I believe you are aware, our vestry has spent the last two years investigating the possibility of selling some of our property in order to create an endowment with which to fund out reach projects. Having received permission from the Standing Committee to go forward with the next step in the process, this sparked a variety of comments as to what would be the best use of our property in order to live out our mssion statement and to establish a financial solvency.

On Wednesday night Bishop John Rabb was present at a meeting to present the Renewal and Growth Committee’s report to the congregation. There was a very good turnout for a Wednesday night, and another vibrant discussion regarding the best way to involve the whole congregation in the next step of renewal and growth, including work on healing and reconciliation in the congregation.

Third, our vestry met yesterday for their annual retreat at the Franciscan Priory. To begin, we met together in small groups for spiritual sharing, and then proceeded to work on goals for the coming year. After a lot of creative brainstorming, the vestry came up with a plan which will be presented to the congregation next week. Your participation is not only needed, it is crucial, and I hope you will add your voice and your talents.

So, as I said, a lot of exciting choices and challenges before us. However, I believe that the most important decision we have to make is not which specific choice we make (e.g., sell the property or keep it) but how we make the decision, how we frame our conversation. The story of the Transfiguration which we heard today can be of help to us in framing our discussion. In fact, I have been thinking of this sermon as “St. Peter’s meets the Transfiguration.”

We hear the story of the Transfiguration every year on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, and again in August if we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration. All 3 synoptic gospels contain this event, which means that it is very important for understanding our life in Christ. A quick recap of the familiar story as Matthew tells it: Jesus has taken his close friends and disciples Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. While they are up there Jesus is transformed in some miraculous way that makes clear to the awestruck disciples that he is bathed in the glory of God. Then Moses and Elijah, the two greatest people in the history of the people of Israel, appear and begin talking with Jesus. Peter, seeing the three of them, says the first thing that comes to his mind, wouldn’t it be nice to build three dwellings, or tents for the three divine beings, and they all can stay there and worship.

Next something happens which I hadn’t fully noticed in previous readings. It seems as if God is bent on interrupting Peter, on stopping Peter’s train of thought before he can finish it. The voice from Heaven cuts in, saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" The first part of the sentence should take us all back to Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, when the same words were said. And I think the second part is a direct command: listen to Jesus, not to your own instincts. And all of a sudden, everything is normal, the prophets are gone, Jesus is telling them not to be afraid, to keep quiet about what happened and heading back down the mountain.

As Matthew tells the story, the next things that happen are that Jesus heals an epileptic the disciples could not heal because of their lack of faith, and then begins teaching about right relationships among his followers. They are on the road to Jerusalem and the cross. So it seems to me that Jesus is making the point that a mystical encounter on the mountain is a brief, wondrous event, but the real work of discipleship, the real “transfiguration” takes place in the work of ministry and the sacrifice he will make on the cross.

Despite my earlier statement, perhaps you are wondering what in the world the transfiguration has to say to our situation. Here is my argument, beginning with some thoughts on sacrifice. Sacrifice is a word with unpleasant connotations: sacrifice is hard, painful, and grim. Yet in theological terms, sacrifice is something given up willingly out of love for God. Sacrifice is not capriciously demanded by God—it can lead to our spiritual growth, and the good of others. Jesus’ offering of his life on the cross is the ultimate example of sacrificial love. I would suggest that we at St. Peter’s are being invited to sacrifice--give up, let go of—three things if we are to listen to the voice of Jesus and move forward in faith in our mission.

First, we are being invited to let go of our comfort zone—the ways we have become comfortable in our life at St Peter’s. The disciples left everything they had to follow Jesus, and were continually nudged and pushed beyond their faith comfort zones. Things like “the way we’ve always done it.” Or just assuming that my opinion is the right one. We are called to really listen to our sisters and brothers here, making the assumption that views they hold are just as sincerely and faithfully held as our own. Whatever decisions we make will entail risks, and new ways of being church. That is always what it means to follow Jesus—to listen to his voice.

Second, we are being invited to let go of the vision we might have of the “perfect” or “best” church. Often that vision is a memory from the past. I know my own “best church” memories come from my time at St. Mark’s, Raleigh, the first church where I truly felt at home and connected with God as an adult. I will find myself thinking, “If we only did things here the way we did them at St. Mark’s, we would take care of a lot of problems.” Well, my wonderful experience occurred over 20 years ago in a different city and a different context. I am sure that if I went back to visit, that many things I treasured would be changed. And if they were the still the same, then St. Mark’s would have stagnated, listening to the voice of comfort rather than the voice of Jesus.

A wonderful church experience might have been in a different congregation, or occurred some time in the past at St. Peter’s, when you were happiest here. Or just possibly, a “best church” is one that doesn’t exist—one where there are never any conflicts, never any difficult decisions, and everyone is easy to like. These feelings are natural, part of human nature. But if I hang on to my vision, I won’t be following Jesus because I won’t be able to hear or see him.

I bring up the third item knowing it may not apply to everyone here or be known to everyone here. This has to do with St. Andrew’s, Glenwood. Some years ago, St. Peter’s decided to send some of the congregation to start at mission there. I have heard more than one person reflect that in hindsight perhaps that was a mistake. Had these congregants not gone, we’d have a “large enough” congregation, wouldn’t be in financial difficulties, and would have been able to build on our property already. I wasn’t here, but I am sure that the sending was a sacrificial offering for the people who stayed and those who left. And I believe we are invited to let go of whatever “what if’s” we have about St. Andrew’s. We are being invited to look at the matter from God’s perspective, not our own. There is now a thriving congregation in that area—thanks be to God!! And while we may miss the people who left, there are plenty of people right in our neighborhood who need God, whether or not they know it.

The Transfiguration makes clear that following Jesus means being on the road, being willing to let go of whatever may be keeping us from hearing and listening to his voice. Our baggage may be material possessions, but not always. Memories of wonderful times in the past in a congregation, or wonderful personal encounters with God can keep us stuck if we cling to them. A wise spiritual friend called that “living in our spiritual archives”. If you or I spend all our time thumbing through our special scrapbook of the past we will not be awake or aware in this exciting present. Jesus always calls us to live in the present, in his Kingdom that is new each day.

So, my friends, that is how I think St. Peter’s meets the Transfiguration today. We have nothing to fear and much to gain. If we truly desire to live out our mission statement: feeding, healing, and reaching out to others, then we have all the gifts we need and will do more than we could ask or imagine. Yes, there will be sacrifices and hard work. St. Paul says it best to his beloved friends in Philippi, explaining why following Christ is the only path worth taking:

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Amen.

God's Call To Us Today

27 January 2008 * I Corinthians 1:10-17 – Matthew 4:12-23

The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland

“For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to proclaim the Gospel…”

Curious words indeed to hear in this season of Epiphany, which features as a central feast day The Day of our Lord’s Baptism.

Yet, at times like these it is hard not to simply fall in love with the Lectionary Schedule of Readings for Sunday morning we now call the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL). Here we are on the one day of the year that we are called to reconsider who we are, where we are and where we are headed and we get Jesus calling disciples to follow him, and Paul’s take on early parish life in Corinth.

Which parish life looks very much like life in the Anglican Communion today, not to mention life in every diocese and parish within the world-wide Anglican Communion of independent related-by-parentage churches.

It looks like what we might call, in a word, “party politics.” Which of course is two words. Paul gets word that people in the church in Corinth are subdividing themselves into those who follow Paul, or those who follow Apollos, and the list could no doubt go on forever. And we may as well admit, we all fall into such traps, and it is a trap.

For instance, I will celebrate the 25^th anniversary of my ordination in December. During this quarter of a century I have served under the following bishops: George Hunt, James Winchester Montgomery, Quentin Primo, Frank Griswold, David Leighton, A.Theodore Eastman, Barry Valentine, Charles Longest, Arthur Walmsley, Clarence Coleridge, Jeffery Rowthorn, Robert Ihloff, and John Rabb, not to mention three Presiding Bishops: Ed Browning, Frank Griswold and Katherine Jefferts-Schori. Many is the time I have identified myself as being devoted to Bishop Montgomery way back there in my ordained infancy in Chicago. Yet, thanks to my devotion to Paul’s take on such devotion, I have repeatedly repented of such cultism, refocused on Christ as my Lord and Savior, and on my calling, as Paul says, to proclaim the Gospel – “not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.”

The same dynamic, of course, exists in parishes. We all have a favorite rector, and those of us fortunate enough to be, as the canons of the church so eloquently put it, a “priest in charge of a cure of souls,” are pretty much resigned to the fact that the favorite rector is almost never the current rector – until of course the current rector moves on, at which point the queue moves back one slot, allowing for membership into the Sacred Order of Previously Beloved Rectors!

I have spent some time studying and admiring the lives of previous rectors of Saint Peter’s. So in the current context as much as I would love to identify myself by “I belong to Velasco,” or “I belong to Atlee,” or “I belong to Handwerk or Bell or Matthewes-Greene” or perhaps most of all “I belong to the venerable and always beloved Fr. Maddux,” all of whom I consider beloved previous rectors and role models each in his own way; and as much as I least want anyone to think of themselves as “belonging to Kubicek,” I hope and pray every day for the few minutes I spend in this most beautiful and prayerful of all places I have ever had the privilege of serving, that I am and remain one who belongs only to God in Christ.

That, of course, is precisely what Jesus himself means as he takes up the clarion call of John the Baptist, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Repent means to turn – to turn around or turn back really. The idea being that we all of us all the time get distracted and begin to walk another way, or multiple other ways, than the Way of the Lord. Jesus means to call us all back on point – on message – on target – on God’s Way.

Aligning ourselves with Christ is the only way given to us to cease sitting in darkness and see and participate in the new Light, the great light, of Christ. Which is the importance of the calling of Peter, Andrew, James and John, all of whom have stained glass windows shining down on us as we come to worship and praise God – not that they, to our way of seeing things, miraculously dropped everything and followed Jesus, but that in following Christ they began to live in a new reality, a new creation - life under God’s reign! Just as the only evidence of this new reality for the world was in the lives they lived beyond Christ’s life, death and resurrection, so it is for us: the world will only see this new way of living and being in the world as they experience us in all that we say and all that we do to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ.

That is, to repent means in part to drop the things of the past, get beyond our devotion to beloved and faithful leaders, and move forward with Christ into the already near and coming kingdom of God.

By incarnating this season of Epiphany, a season to manifest God’s light in our daily life and conduct, our society, community and the whole world will be confronted with empirical evidence of the reality of a new creation.

Those who contribute to the life of Christ and manifest God’s light in this place include:

Errol and Gavin Elliot and Errol’s crew in the kitchen yesterday

Pat and Ollie Hand who began the kitchen renovation

Tom Hesson for the new organ

Greg Fraser and the Choir for glorious music

Suzonne Sage and her companions for ministry to youth in and beyond the parish

Jennie Boyer who secured a Millenium Goals Grant from the diocese of $12,000 for Itipini

The people of our Altar Guild: Beth McSweeney, Judy Stone, Jane Bergman, Katherine Schnorrenberg, Eric and Lalitha Samuels, Diana Pon, Sharon Sachs

Eric Samuel and the dozen or so people who represent us at PATH (People Acting Together in Howard)

Our Evangelism team of Beth McSweeney, Katherine Schnorrenberg, Guv Mitchell and Tom Hesson who distributed hundred of leaflets in the neighborhood to announce the times of our Christmas services

Those who serve week in and week out at the Altar and as Ushers

Those who count the offering and prepare the deposit each week

Deena Cate and her companions for making the church beautiful

Angela Mitchell, Anne Pounder, The McSweeneys, Katherine Schnorrenberg for hosting the hospitality of literally feeding us week in and week out and at special events

Katherine and Tom and Mary Maruguerite for their devotion to our Youth

The young people of our Youth Group themselves who do so much for Saint Peter's and those in need

Anne Pounder and her dedicated volunteers who operate our Vacation Bible School

Katie, Debra, Katherine, Anne, Denise, Tracey and all who educate our young people in the way of Christ.

Barrington who comes often in the dark of night to keep this place clean

Bev Foster and now Brenda Brewington and a new host of volunteers (Annette, Gloria, Tracey, Mina, Janet) who do heavy lifting in the office

Phil Shaw who keeps us informed and connected on a day to day basis

Our officers, Our Vestry

Robin Fleegal and the teachers in our fantastic church school

Alexa Fair and Katie Shaw who help with book keeping

John Francis who is faithful in keeping track of our finances which, despite how it feels, are bountiful and powerful in the ministry it empowers to happen

Mary Marguerite and Gina who bring a spirit and energy to the life of our community that grounds us in Christ and the mission to which He calls us, and so ably and faithfully help me to see new ways of looking at things

My family, Harper, Kirk Alan, Cerny, Lucky the dog, and most of all Mallory without whom I would not be standing here …

These are just some of the people here at Saint Peter’s who proclaim the Good News of Jesus week in and week out, day in and day out. To remind ourselves of just what this Good News is, and who we are called to be and what we are called to do, we are directed by both the Catechism and Baptismal Covenant in our Book of Common Prayer.

Turning to page 855 in The Book of Common Prayer, and as we prepare ourselves to meet together, let us review The Mission of the Church, and the Ministry we all share as Baptized Lay Persons:

An Outline of the Faith: The Catechism BCP 855-856

The Church

Q. What is the mission of the Church?

A. The mission of the Church is to restore all people to

unity with God and each other in Christ.

Q. How does the Church pursue its mission?

A. The Church pursues its mission as it prays and

worships, proclaims the Gospel, and promotes justice,

peace, and love.

Q. Through whom does the Church carry out its mission?

A. The Church carries out its mission through the ministry

of all its members.

The Ministry

Q. Who are the ministers of the Church?

A. The ministers of the Church are lay persons, bishops,

priests, and deacons.

Q. What is the ministry of the laity?

A. The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his

Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be

and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on

Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world; and to take

their place in the life, worship, and governance of the

Church.

Q. What is the duty of all Christians?

A. The duty of all Christians is to follow Christ; to come

together week by week for corporate worship; and to

work, pray, and give for the spread of the kingdom of

God.

One might say this is our job description – a job description shared by all persons, lay or ordained. We are a people called to work for unity, justice and reconciliation. We are not perfected in this calling of ours – many times I feel the least capable of living such a life as it is described here. Only with your support, the support of a community of the baptized, do I even have a chance of living into this new life of working, praying and giving for the spread of the kingdom of God.

At this point I would ask us all to sit in silence to review the Annual Report, giving special attention to the Nominating statements of the four persons who have offered to be elected to our vestry. We will vote for three of them later this morning. All four would be an asset to the life of our community, but for now our bylaws only allow us to elect three. Use this silence also as a time of prayer and meditation to discern the ways in which God may already be calling you to a new life of ministry in his Body, the Church as it is articulated as our job description in our Catechism. Then I will call us back together to sum up my remarks for the day and lead us in renewing our Baptismal Covenant.

I believe Saint Peter’s is on the verge of a profound new journey of renewal and growth. I am in my fourteenth year as rector of this remarkable and historic parish. I honestly can say I love this parish and its history – I have met the children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, nieces and nephews of the man who literally built this church with his own hands, his own heart and his own soul. Yet, I do not hear God calling us to relive any of our history, but rather to honor it and learn from it, just as St. Paul and Jesus this morning urge us to drop the past and move into God’s glorious promise and future!

I can also honestly say I love every individual in this parish, past and present, and I love the sense of Christ’s presence mediated in our very midst by the company of everyone who calls Saint Peter’s his or her spiritual home.

Although, as our welcoming statement in our weekly bulletin puts it best, I confess to not being perfected in this love, I want to become more fully loving, and welcome into our community all who wish to join us in this endeavor.

Jesus calls us today and every day to join with him in proclaiming the good news of God’s kingdom, and to Feed, Heal and Reach Out to all people in his name. May we, as we pray, answer readily his call, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works. I know with his call, his ministry of reconciliation, and his love as our central focus, all things shall be well.

Amen.

The Wrath of God

Feast of the Baptism – Matthew 3:13-17

The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, MD

The Wrath of God

This Feast of our Lord’s Baptism tells us something about the wrath of God. Yet, with all of the hullabaloo surrounding Christmas and Epiphany, today’s Feast of the Baptism might be easily overlooked.

I visited Israel ten years ago with an ecumenical and inter-faith group from Baltimore, and when we visited the site where Jesus’ baptism is said to have taken place, it became apparent that for Orthodox and Baptist Christians this was perhaps the most sacred historic place we visited.

My Baptist roommate immediately remarked, “This is it!” When I asked what he meant, he explained that the scenery we were looking upon was exactly what is painted behind the baptismal pools in many Baptist churches. And our Orthodox companions explained that this Feast of the Baptism is their most sacred Feast day next to Easter.

Indeed, this Feast of the Baptism may offer us the most important reminder of who we are and whose we are. It is on page 298 in the Book of Common Prayer that we are told, “Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body, the church. The Bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble.”

Baptism is not a precious moment to name a child. It is a moment of transformation and change. I recall a bishop who once pointed to the Baptismal Font and said, “This is a dangerous place. No one ever comes away from this font the same as when they come to it.”

Indeed, although Jesus’ baptism is very different from our own in some ways, he comes to John as one of us. John tries to defer to Jesus. Jesus has none of that. He asserts his full humanity – he looks for no privilege, he does not pull rank. This is to become a hallmark of his mission and ministry.

Just as he comes up out of the water, we are told, everything is changed. He sees the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. Then comes a voice from offstage – from heaven says the text: “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

I don’t remember exactly when it was that I got it – the connection between what our prayer book says about Baptism and this story – a story, as I have said, that gets lost somewhere between Christmas, Epiphany and the coming of Lent.

But it is quite simple – if our Baptism makes us, incorporates us, into the Body of Christ, then when we come up out of the waters of Baptism this offstage voice must be saying to us, ”You are my Beloved…I am well pleased with you.”

I honestly truly believe this to be the case. I now imagine at every Baptism at which I am present that little cherubim like we sang about at the beginning of this service are singing into the ears of the newly baptized, “You are God’s beloved….God is well pleased with you….” As we “grow up” we tend to forget we ever heard these words. We need reminders. If one looks carefully at the promises we make and renew at every baptism, we are meant to be the reminders for the rest of the world!

A case can be made that the entire Bible from front to back means to remind us that we are God’s Beloved people – God’s Beloved Community – meant to be a blessing to all nations and all people, announcing to them just how much God loves them too. When we forget all this, and when we forget just how beloved we are in the eyes of God, we tend to forget how Beloved others are also. This provokes the wrath of God. Maggie Ross, a hermit and writer on the life of the Spirit, has suggested that, “The wrath of God is his relentless compassion, pursuing us even when we are at our worst.” –The Fire of Your Life, (Paulist Press, NY:1983) p. 137

To make just this point, the late Henri Nouwen wrote the following in his book, Life of the Beloved. It is a passage that compiles some of the endless references in the Bible to just how much the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus really loves us. We might note that the majority of these quotations come from what we call the Old Testament:

God says to us:

I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my beloved, on you my favor rests. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will satisfy all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own as I know you as my own. You belong to me. I am your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your lover, your partner, your spouse … yes, even your child. Wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one.

-Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved, p.30ff

I have put this on a bookmark that I want us all to have in our Bibles. Read it once a day so that we may never forget who we are and whose we are. Once we pass through the waters of Holy Baptism we are never the same, thank goodness! We are the Body of Christ sent into the world as instruments of healing for the world, the whole world, and everyone and everything therein. We are agents of the “wrath of God!”

Amen.

The Uncontrollable Mystery on the Beastial Floor

6 January 2008 – Epiphany * Matthew 2:1-12

The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, St. Peter’s at Ellicott Mills

THE MAGI

by: W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

NOW as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,

In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones

Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky

With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,

And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,

And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,

Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,

The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

"The Magi" is reprinted from Responsibilities. W.B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, 1916.

Epiphany – manifestation – suggests, even requires, that we are looking for something. Like the magi, wise men from afar, we are looking for something – anything to help us better understand why we are here and where we are going.

William Butler Yeats helps us to imagine this all too familiar story in a new light depicting our magi as “unsatisfied ones.” This unsatisfaction is repeated twice in the space of only eight lines. Recalling their first seeing the Christ of God in that manger in Bethlehem, then disappearing again so as not to give Herod the satisfaction of knowing where to find the child.

Those of us who know the rest of the story know what a fateful decision this was to be – for Herod took it upon himself to have all male children two or younger killed in hopes of eliminating any one of them displacing him as the titular King of the Jews.

Poor Herod shares the deep misunderstanding of those in power in any time and any place – a belief that a show of violence and force is enough to maintain power. And the misunderstanding that the one who was born on “the bestial floor” would lead some kind of military or guerilla revolt against the occupational forces of Rome. Herod’s is a miscalculation that continues to be repeated over and over again – just read the day’s headlines and it is there – ongoing attempts to use “helms of silver,” weapons of all descriptions, to bring law and order and peace to a troubled world.

It is the violence of Calvary – history’s most distinctly unsatisfying demonstration of the ineffectiveness of capital punishment – contrasted with the incarnation of God as Jesus in the most humble of settings, a feeding trough for beasts of the field.

Only certain magi, poets, and visionaries have ever managed to fully appreciate that singular moment when God came down to be with us as a naked, vulnerable, newborn child. Ask a Ghandi or a Martin King what they have seen.

At the heart of this Epiphany tale is the necessary moment of decision – a choice needed to be made in the face of power, violence and a show of force: will we give the Herod’s of this world our support, tacit or otherwise? Or, not?

The Magi, we are told, “departed to their own country by another way.”

We might overlook what might be the two most important words in this all too familiar story: “another way.”

I believe Matthew in his singular telling of this tale – for it appears only in Matthew’s gospel and no other – is calling those of us who like the Magi are searching for a better understanding of why we are here and where we are meant to be going, that there is the way of the world, and there is “another way.”

Yeats imagines the Magi as having seen “another way.” They do not do the King’s bidding. They do not support an administration of power sustained by fear, violence and killing. They find the “turbulence” of Calvary and its display of capital punishment as unsatisfying for a world that calls us to respect the dignity of every human being.

There is something about the revealed and “uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor” of Bethlehem that calls, urges, demands we find another way. Is it just a coincidence that the very first generation of people who followed Jesus became known as “the people of the Way”? And that the “way” was His way, a new way, “another way” as the text before us would have it?

I imagine that Matthew’s telling of this tale still calls us to become a people who are looking for, advocating and bringing into human consciousness “another way” in a world in which all the old ways continue to be utterly unsatisfying.

Our satisfaction lies with the Magi – they demonstrate the importance of making a choice against supporting the old ways and physically striking out on “another way.”

This is who this Feast of the Epiphany calls us to be – people of the way, those who choose another way. We have now only a moment for this – like the Magi our time and our place calls us to such a moment of decision with no time to ponder, dither or “make up our minds.”

But as the Gospel of Jesus Christ shows us time and time again, although we have now only a moment to choose to follow Him in another way, it is enough - even if this moment is seemingly overwhelmed by other forces of history. For when we join our moments of decision with His and that of the Magi, new forces are set in motion that cannot be overcome by the inadequacies of power, violence and death.

We are to see in this moment nothing less than the light of Christ. We are to walk in His light until we are so joined with it and with Him that no earthly powers of darkness will be capable of overcoming it, or us. For this we give thanks to the God of the “uncontrollable mystery of the bestial floor.” Amen.

'Tis A Gift To Receive

Christmas 2007

Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills

I Done It For Love

Imagine striking a match that night in the cave:

use the cracks in the floor to feel the cold.

Use crockery in order to feel the hunger.

And to feel the desert – but the desert is everywhere.

Imagine striking a match in that midnight cave,

the fire, the farm beasts in outline, the farm tools and stuff;

and imagine, as you towel your face in the towel’s folds,

the bundled up Infant. And Mary and Joseph.

Imagine the kings, the caravans’ stilted procession

as they make for the cave, or rather three beams closing in

and in on the star; the creaking of loads, the clink of a cowbell;

(but in the cerulean thickening over the Infant

no bell and no echo of bell: He hasn’t yet earned it.)

Imagine the Lord, for the first time, from darkness, and stranded

immensely in distance, recognizing Himself in the Son

of Man: homeless, going out to Himself in a homeless one.

1989 – Joseph Brodsky, translated by Seamus Heaney

As this poem by the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky reminds us, Christmas calls us to imagine: imagine what it may have been like in that stable or cave in the back streets of Bethlehem. Imagine what the caravan of the magi must have really been like traversing much of the ancient world. Imagine a God choosing to enter into the most mundane of settings in this world 2000 years ago – arriving homeless, naked, vulnerable, utterly dependent upon the creation and the creatures God’s own self had marked as his own so many thousands of millions of years before. Imagine that as Martin Luther reminds us, the wood of the crib is the hard wood of the cross. Imagine the darkness in that cave, and needing to strike a match to even see Mary and Joseph, and between them, the baby.

The mystery of the Incarnation – God choosing to become one of us, Emmanuel, God with us – is a mystery that calls upon the infinite depths of our imagination to reflect on the incredible Love that is God: A love so deep, so broad, so endless in God’s desire to be in communion with God’s own beloved people, you and me and all persons throughout the world and throughout all time.

The hymn we just sang (114), “’Twas in the moon of winter time…” is another kind of imagining (http://www.rivernen.ca/legend_6.htm). It is the very first Christmas Carol written on the North American continent. It was written by a Saint, Father Jean de Brebeuf, a French Jesuit priest who lived among the Huron People in the early 1600’s. Brebeuf was both a missionary and linguist. He wrote the carol in the Huron language as a gift to the Huron people – wishing to make the story of the birth of Christ, the Incarnation of God, accessible for First Nation people, Fr. Brebeuf revisioned the song in such a way with cultural references to broken bark, rabbit skin and forest hunters, such that it still resonates with many First Nation people to this day. The Anglicized version we just sang, translated in 1926 by Jesse Edgar Middleton, continues to be a centerpiece of Christmas caroling among Canada’s leading aboriginal singers. Imagine what a gift Fr. Brebeuf gave to the now nearly extinct Huron tribe (extinguished by an Iroquois attack encouraged by the British who were after control of the French claimed territory) – Fr. Brebeuf gave them personal knowledge of God’s love for them in the Christ child in a telling of the story that would be very much be their own.

I recently ran across another story of another sort of Christmas gift.

“In 1980, the day before Christmas, Richard Ballinger’s mother in Anderson, South Carolina, was busy wrapping packages and asked her young son to shine her shoes. Soon, with the proud smile that only a seven-year-old can muster, he presented the shoes for inspection. His mother was so pleased, she gave him a quarter.

“On Christmas morning as she put on her shoes to go to church, she noticed a lump in one shoe. She took it off and found a quarter wrapped in paper. Written on the paper in a child’s scrawl were the words, “I done it for love.”

(Brennan Manning, Watch For The Light [Plough Publishing, Farmington, PA:2001] p. 202)

Imagine and remember for just a moment the very best Christmas gift you have ever received. Perhaps something you had wished for, but had never told a soul except Santa Claus in that letter you sent to the North Pole. And then it happened: there it was under the tree Christmas morning!

No doubt it was a morning of mixed emotions. First there is the stunned surprise. Is it really true? Is this wonderful gift mine? Then followed by a sort of embarrassment of not really knowing what to do next. And embarrassment because you know things are really tight, and have a fleeting suspicion of what the gift cost and that it really had not come from the North Pole.

But there was also a welling up of unutterable joy and gratitude – which appears to have lasted because here and now that Christmas morning is swirling up out of unconscious memory so many many years later.

Each of us can test that same experience tomorrow – surprise, embarrassment, joy and gratitude. The special gift you receive will be a surprise. You will gasp. You will draw in your breath. You will look with awe as you open the diamond just like the one in the DeBeers advertisement, the scarf carefully knitted by a six-year-old, a message of gratitude from someone who had found strength and spiritual help here at St. Peter’s and no longer lives here.

Then, is it embarrassment or a sense of humble unworthiness? Why me? How much effort and secrecy and skill went into that six-year-old’s green and red and orange knitted scarf? How many hours of research went into finding that out-of-print first edition of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Poetry? Why all this, for me?

But finally, joy and gratitude! It is as if those tight bands about the heart (which most of us know) are unloosed. There may even be a tear or two. I hope there will be at least a hug, of genuine, warming, bear-type quality. And a final deep sigh of utter completion. It will be the kind of fulfillment which allows for a new beginning, facing the afternoon of Christmas Day or even the twelve months ahead with newly invigorated spirit and life!

We too often emphasize Christmas as a season of giving. Too many Christmas cards underline those words of Jesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Words that come from the Book of Acts, not any of the four Gospels. And this is true – we must never forget.

Yet, more than anything at all, Christmas is also a time to receive a gift, a wonderful truth.

We will each of us receive some special gift tomorrow/today from someone who loves us. More wonderful even, we will each of us, singly and together, receive a gift from someone who loves us even more, from God.

In any of our lives there is a manger, now doubtless empty, cold, malodorous, surrounded by beasts – the heartbreaks, tragedies and disappointments of our lives. But it is there that you will find the child, newborn, if you will look on him and be open to receive God’s gift.

It can come to you this Christmas, that gift, that birth within you of the Christ child, when you become aware of and touch, perhaps only fleetingly, the whole and complete person God intended you to be, that God intends you to be. It can happen when you are alone, or it can happen when you are in company. It can happen right here, at this present Bethlehem, at this Holy Table, when and where you receive tangible evidence, bread and wine, God’s Body and God’s Blood, God’s own life given to you and for you.

As in receiving any real gift, your response will be astonishment, humility, and a deep restorative joy. To which we can only say, Gracias, Gratia, Thank you, Eucharistia, Grace!

If you find yourself asking God, “Why me? Why us? Why for all the world” know that the answer will be and has always been, “I done it for love.”

Be open tonight/today to receive that gift, open-handed, with an open heart unbound, offering nothing but your need, your empty manger. Centuries of experience assure you that God’s gift is being offered: God’s Son, born within you.

Arise like the shepherds and go out into the world with astonishment, humility and joy! Respond in whatever language you may know – Thank you, Gratia, Eucharistia! Your Gratitude will show forth as a light for all the world to see, God is love – God’s Son is Love incarnate.

Merry Christmas! God bless us every one!

The Man Who Was A Lamp

16 December 2007 – Advent 3A : James 5:7-10 – Matthew 11:2-11

The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills

Stir Up Sunday

“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.”

This is our prayer every Third Sunday of Advent. It sounds hopeful, even a bit defiant. We desire a God, our God, to come into this world of darkness, disappointment and seemingly unending woes to shake things up and shape things up. To take a world that appears to be upside down and turn it back right-side up – that is, the way God intends it to be from the day God said, “Let there be….”

Surely this is what is on John the Baptist’s mind. Surely he has been waiting for the “the one to come,” the messiah, God’s anointed. And just as surely if Jesus were God’s anointed, the incredibly evil and traitorous Herod would be overcome, the shackles would come off, the prison doors flung open, and John would be vindicated. So he sends his disciples to find out, “Are you the One?”

We may as well face it, for those of a true and honest faith, it is a question we ask everyday. Now capable of receiving reports from every inch of this earth, our fragile, island home, instantaneously by digitized zeroes and ones in High Definition 24/7, one cannot help but wonder, from time to time, is Jesus the one?

Recall, only last Sunday John was predicting the “wrath to come,” and instead Jesus shows up and says to one and all, righteous and sinner alike, “Let’s eat!”

John expected an axe laid to the tree, and instead comes a gardener hoeing the ground around it.

John dreams of a man with a winnowing fork separating the wheat from the chaff and burning the chaff in unquenchable fire, and along comes a singing seed scatterer.

Truly when John spoke of there being one among us whom we do not know, he spoke from experience. We would do well to remember this, and to remember John’s questioning heart, for we stand with him day and night, looking out from behind whatever bars or shackles hold us back from embracing all that Jesus invites us to be, to live, the work he begins and calls us to continue.

John lived in the desert, waiting. Though his demeanor, dress and actions do not convey a man of patience, he does have something to teach us about waiting – like the farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and late rains.

In the emptiness of John’s desert we find our selves waiting,

“like a bowl that waits for wine,

like a flute that waits for breath,

like a sentinel that waits for the dawn,

You are a highway ready for traffic,

and here comes One

who seems also to be waiting,

waiting for the construction to be complete.

The more is arriving,

and there is only one question,

‘Are you the One Who Is To Come?’

Jesus answered,

‘Go and tell John

what you see and hear.’

So they did.” - John Shea, The Man Who Was A Lamp (Starlight[Crossroads, NY:1992])

What do we see and hear? An anointed man of God restoring lepers to a life of community; giving those who are blind new vision, new hope; those who could not hear suddenly hear the voice of God that says, “You are my beloved;” the poor hear of good news, of old promises coming to pass.

We come here week after week so that we might “open our eyes to see God’s hand at work in the world about us!” This is hard work. To first open our eyes, eyes which reflexively avert themselves from the news of the world. And then to look for the good news amongst the bad, the flowers amongst the weeds.

John was expecting the fall of Rome. Jesus says, “There are more important things to which we must attend ourselves first. Kicking out the Romans is the least of what we are about!

The last enemy to be defeated, says Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians, is death. Jesus says that’s just next on the list. Do not be offended, he says, by how I choose to go about my Father’s business. All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well.

When John heard what his disciples had seen and heard, we can imagine he was not offended or disappointed, but rather fulfilled. He was the cleanser of eyes, but not the sight that fills them. He was the opener of ears, but not the word that thrills them. A prophet, says Jesus, but more. John is a friend of the Bridegroom – the man who was a lamp, the man who shows us the way to find Jesus. He brings us, at our own pace, to the entrance of the cave.

We must be patient, for the coming of the Lord is near. “Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors!” Open our doors, let him in, know the joy of John. Become a friend of the Bridegroom, and more. In knowing Him we shall know ourselves – Beloved of God, sisters and brothers in Christ, the Body of Christ in this world and the next! Amen.

First, Second and Third Advents

9 December 2007 * Advent 2A – Isaiah 11:1-10/Matthew 3:1-12

The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland

Watch It, Seek It, Become It

Advent is a season that gets lost somewhere between Halloween and Christmas. Advent, of course, means “coming.” What is coming is variously understood, as well as what our posture is meant to be in the mean time. Although “waiting” is often associated with Advent, something slightly more active like “watching” might better capture the spirit of things. So what might we be watching for?

It is often said there are two Advents: Waiting and Watching for the Coming of Christ in the Manger; and Watching and Waiting for Christ to Come Again to Judge the peoples of the Earth. Since this “Second Coming” makes us uneasy for obvious reasons (who wants to be judged?), Advent tends to collapse into The First Coming in the Manger. Cuddly babies are more to our liking than a Judge who is sorting us out into groups of sheep and goats. Baaaaaaaaaa!

The keen observer has noticed that the Green hangings on the altar and the vestments have given away to Advent Blue – the customary seasonal color in the Sarum Rite. And for those of us here at Saint Peter’s, we have on the altar perhaps the most mysterious of all altar frontals I have ever seen – a several hundred years-old embroidery of Jesus hanging on a palm tree. This may seem more apt for a time like Holy Week what with a cruciform Jesus and palms and all. We might, however, consider two observations about the incarnation of God in baby Jesus.

The Koran depicts the birth of Jesus as taking place beneath a palm tree. There are several variations on this story, but my favorite is that the wind (the Holy Spirit?) blows through the fronds of the palm tree, and baby Jesus falls into the lap of the Virgin Mary who happens (by arrangement of the same Holy Spirit) to be sitting under that very tree. This makes our frontal a potential bridge between Christians and our sisters and brothers who are Muslim.

The second observation was made by an old priest in a rural church far far away, many many years ago. He began preaching in such a soft voice that Christmas Eve that people in the pews had to lean forward to hear what he was saying. The quieter they got, the more clearly they could hear him saying, “The wood of the crib is the wood of the cross, the wood of the crib is the wood of the cross.” That is, Christmas and Good Friday really mean to celebrate the same truths about the incarnation.

Take your pick. For reflecting on the impossible truth of what Christmas is all about, it is hard to get any better starting place than looking at our Jesus in the palm trees for the next few weeks.

As to the Second Coming, alas, all too much is said on TV, in books, on websites all claiming to know just when and how it will all come down. Whole series of books and movies have been made. All, I am sure to our Lord’s own personal amusement. Since it was he who said, “Of that time and that hour only the Father knows, not me.” It might help to think of it all this way. Whether it is the First Coming or the Second, Advent proclaims a God who does not stay distant from creation, or impassive in the face of creation’s need for redemption, prosperity and peace. God answers the cries of his people, says Mary Hinkle Shore (Ass. Prof. of NT at Luther Seminary, St. Paul) and God will, in Christ, come to lead them home! Judgment means that the notion that might makes right will be replaced by love makes all things right. Only those who subscribe to the first notion have anything to fear in the Second Coming.

But at last, we might do well to consider what Professor Shore proposes as a Third Advent, or Third Coming – the daily coming of Christ into our individual and communal lives with a vision for how we might live in such a way that our lives bear witness to the hope we have for the future and to the justice God will establish for all peoples!

Having experienced this Third Advent, I would like to share with you an example so you too might keep an eye out for the daily coming of Christ into our lives. I was in Syracuse at a Stewardship Conference. I was in a room of about 100 people. In the front was a table of about six deaf persons, with an interpreter signing what was being said and sung. It was beautiful to watch the interpreter doing her best to communicate with her hands what the rest of us were saying and hearing. As we sang hymn 711, Seek Ye First The Kingdom of God, all six of the persons at that table were signing the song. It was extraordinarily beautiful and powerful. Soon I put down my guitar and joined them on the “Alleluias” while my partner Wiley Beveridge kept playing the piano.

Then it happened. One by one everyone in the room began to sign the “Alleluias” along with the people in the front of the room. Our collective signing became a sign of the kingdom breaking in right then and there. We had left our world and entered into their world. Of course, they were in front and facing forward and could not see that. The interpreter motioned for them to turn around and look. The looks on their faces, smiles, tears, looks of being accepted, seeing a roomful of people enter their world for just a few minutes, said it all. The look on their faces was the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven in Christ. We all saw it. We all felt it. We will never forget it.

Isaiah offers a vision of what the kingdom will look like – predators and prey all sitting down together, a weaned child near the den of the asp. John the Baptist announces the Kingdom is at hand. It is here every day if we just look at it. It is here in our midst for those who are watching and joining in with those who are announcing it. We are not called to Wait for the kingdom, we are sent to Seek it. Seek ye, first, the Kingdom of God….Allelu, Alleluia! As we take the time to enter into the world of “others,” those who live lives completely differently from ours, the closer the kingdom will look.

This Advent Seek and Watch. It might mean reflecting on the mysterious truths of the incarnation and nature of God as depicted on our Advent frontal with Jesus in the Palm Trees. It might mean watching for signs of the kingdom here and now. It may be as simple as singing and signing Alleluia. For as John says, the kingdom of heaven has come near – it is at hand, here and now. Watch it, seek it, become it. Amen.