29 January 2012/Epiphany 4B – Mark 1: 21-28 – The Reverend Kirk A. Kubicek
Live Well With Others
One is immediately impressed with the economy and compactness of Mark. Like the short stories of Raymond Carver or Ernest Hemmingway, the narrative moves quickly and efficiently with short declarative sentences from one episode to the next. Very much like the region of Galilee itself – “The Sea” is really more of a small lake from which one can see the other side quite easily without instruments of magnification. And one can easily walk from the shoreline where we saw Jesus calling pairs of fishermen to follow him into the city of Capernaum in matter of minutes. Across the way one can see ancient healing springs – spas – where people flocked from all over the ancient world to find “healing.”
As you enter Capernaum today a sign on a chain-link fence announces, “Capernaum – The City of Jesus.” As I entered the gates I thought to myself, “That sounds rather hokey and touristy.” Yet, one does not have to spend much time in the excavated city of Capernaum to know deep inside that yes, Jesus walked these streets, taught in these synagogues, spent time in Peter’s Mother-in-law’s house, and spent much of his time there exorcising demons of all kinds.
This how Mark pitches the story: Jesus is presented as teacher and exorcist. We do not spend a lot of time these days thinking and speaking about Jesus the exorcist. Exorcism has largely been relegated to the world of Hollywood movie lots rather than core Christian reflection and discipleship. But this is the Jesus of Mark from beginning to end - Mark who is credited with originating the “gospel” genre of Biblical literature.
Unquestionably Mark borrows the word “gospel” from Second Isaiah, the source of hope and encouragement for Israel in Exile in Babylon: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!” (Is 52:7) Now applied to Jesus of Nazareth, Mark opens with the words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
Jesus is the very embodiment of this good news, which once upon a time meant freedom from captivity in Babylon, but by the time of Jesus was understood as captivity specifically to demonic control – whether in the form of demons of all kinds, or the demonic occupation by Rome. Mark asserts in no uncertain language that all first century citizens of Israel would understand, that a new reign of God was at hand to usurp and replace the enslaving regime of Satan and the demonic in general; that good news will be the work of an agent of God anointed (messiah) with the Spirit for the task; and that this liberation will entail repentance from Sin and reconciliation with God. Mark manages to say all this in chapter 1 verse 1 for those who are familiar with the Old Testament narrative and language.
Now we post-enlightenment, post-modern readers and hearers of the Word might tend to snicker at the very mention of Satan and demons, but we do so at our own peril. In our Baptism we renounce Satan, the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, and all sinful desires that separate us from the Love of God – which of course is anything that separates us from one another. It is fundamental to admit that we not only believe in Satan and demons, but that whenever we snicker at such belief we are in fact doing the work of Satan!
Now what is breathtaking about Mark is that although we hear that people are astonished with Jesus’ teaching, there is no explication of what he taught. But in portraying the exorcism of the demon from the man who entered the synagogue with an unclean spirit, Mark announces once and for all who is in charge. As the gospel unfolds, Jesus is engaged in a battle for authority and control that dogs him to the very end. Hostility, betrayal and misunderstanding follow him wherever he goes, whatever he teaches, whatever he does.
Brendan Byrne suggests that both his authoritative teachings and the exorcisms that follow are “exercises of liberation: lives can be controlled by false images of God, by being anchored in hopes and fears belonging to an age that is passing. Jesus’ teaching is ‘new’ with the ‘newness of the Kingdom’ that will bring into being for the first time the Creator’s original intent for human beings and the world.” Byrne, A Costly Freedom, p 45.
This newness, by the way, is contrasted with the teaching of the religious experts, whose method of teaching relies principally on disputatious interpretation of scripture. Surely the man with the unclean spirit had heard much of this kind of teaching and remained unmoved until Jesus announces that the “time has come” for the reign or rule of God to begin.
Even the demons know the jig is up, their time of control is coming to an end. “What is there between us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” The demons make a last ditch effort to control Jesus by naming him. It does not work. The demons are dispatched; the man is free to go in Peace “according to your Word.” Notice is served in the synagogue of Capernaum where scribal teaching has failed to chip away at the rule of Satan that a new rule, a new era has dawned. The demon’s convulsing the man betrays the demons destructive intent – the loud cry both an acknowledgement of defeat and a protest that the regime of the demonic in human life, and the life of the community of God, is coming to an end. We shall hear a loud cry once again and see that destructiveness in a far more extreme degree as Jesus dies on the cross. We are those people who know, however, that the moment of apparent triumph of the demonic on the cross will be the moment of its defeat and the exorcism of the world.
So what we have before us is a text that offers a choice very much like the one Moses proclaims way back in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verses 15-20: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life that your descendants may live.”
Christians are called to be those people who understand all of this. As Paul writes, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something [like the scribes for instance] does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by Him.” 1 Corinthians 8: 1b-3
Joan Chittister in her exposition of the Rule of Benedict writes, “God is calling us to more than the material level of life and God is waiting to bring us to it. All we have to do is live well with others and live totally in God. All we have to do is learn to listen to the voice of God in life. And we have to do it heart, soul and body. The spiritual life demands all of us.” Joan Chittister, OSB, The Rule of Benedict, p 31
In this remarkable octave of our Annual Meeting, Meeting with the Bishop, to today’s lessons, the choice is still ours to make- we can choose life, choose to live well with others, choose to live totally in God. Or, not. We can remain anchored in the hopes and fears of the passing age, or anchored in the newness of the age to come, the age of Christ. The future of those who come after us depends on the choices we make. Amen.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Come and See!
15 January 2012 / Epiphany 2A - Psalm 139/John 1:(31-42), 43-51
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter's at Ellicott Mills
Come and See
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it... 14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. So begins the First Chapter of the Fourth Gospel. It ends with angels ascending and descending upon the son of man. Much of this chapter has to do with declaring who Jesus is, and how we are to respond to his presence among us.
Our portion records the second of two days of Jesus gathering disciples. The way in which John sees this happening, however, is that someone like Andrew meets Jesus, and is so excited he goes to find his brother Peter. Then in Galilee Jesus finds Philip, invites him to "follow me," and then Philip finds Nathanael. This is what disciples do throughout the gospel of John - they, not Jesus, go out to gather more followers. Disciples, like Philip, are constantly reaching out to new people and saying, "Come and see!" This is the normative pattern for growing the Christian community, says John. No slick marketing schemes, no seductive programs - one person experiences Jesus in his or her life and invites others to come and share that experience. The text means to challenge us, asking, "Just how often do we do this?"
Another discipleship theme is the recognition of Jesus' identity - from verse 35-51 Jesus is called "Rabbi"(v38), "the Messiah"(v41), "him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote"(v45), "Son of God"(vv34,49), "King of Israel"(v49), "Jesus, son of Joseph of Nazareth" (v45), to which Jesus adds his own, "Son of Man"(v51). All contribute important attributes of who Jesus is: one who fulfills scripture, one who answers Israel's hopes for a future leader, a new king like David or a prophet like Moses. All attributes people were looking for in the first century, and none of which or even all of which sum up who Jesus is. And none of them is identical to what the prologue has already told the reader, that Jesus is the Word-made-flesh, and the Word is God, and the Word is Light, and the Light is the life of the world!
We pray today to be illumined by this Light through Word and Sacraments so that we might "shine with the radiance of Christ's glory." It is easy to forget - Jesus is the Word, Jesus is the Sacrament. When asked at a liturgical conference how many sacraments there are, a nun replied, "Two: Christ and his Church. There are currently seven manifestations of these two sacraments that form the life of the Church." We are the Body of Christ, we are the sacrament of Christ for the world. Again the text means to ask: Are we shining with the radiance of Christ's glory?
The call of Nathanael by Philip stands out. It is the first time that witness to Jesus is met with resistance. "We have found the one....Jesus, son of Joseph of Nazareth," says Philip. What Nathanael thinks he knows about Jesus - that he is from Nazareth - is enough to determine what he can expect of Jesus ("Can anything good come out of Nazareth?") This too becomes a theme in the Fourth Gospel - people's preconceptions about Jesus can stand in the way of people's experience of Jesus.
Not much has changed in that regard. Not only do we all come with our own preconceptions about Jesus, but we all harbor preconceptions about one another. Note carefully that Jesus, on the other hand, who has every reason to be insulted by Nathanael's remark sees only the good that Nathanael can be and is - an Israelite without guile, as the King James had it, or without deceit, as we get it today. Nathanael is appropriately flummoxed - how do you know anything about me at all?!? Still somewhat antagonistic. Jesus starts talking about one of his favorite go-to topics, fig trees, indicating only that if you are the Word of God and you are God, you are expected to know these things!
Besides if you think my knowing that there is good in you for the building up of God's kingdom is something, you ain't seen nothing yet. You will see heaven opened and angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. This is a reference to the Son of Man language of the book of Daniel, and to Jacob's vision of angel's ascending and descending a ladder, or staircase - something like the ziggurats of central and south America. Which is to say, this is where earthly and heavenly, human and divine, meet. Jesus uses traditional Old Testament language and imagery to announce that God is in the neighborhood. This is what "the Word became flesh" ultimately means - God with us, Immanuel.
It is interesting to note that William Temple's translation regarding Nathanael has it, "Behold an Israelite in whom there is no Jacob." Jacob is the very prime representative of guile and deceit - he who was born grabbing his brother Esau by the heel in an attempt to be the first-born, he who stole his brother's birthright, he who was accused of stealing his father-in-laws best animals - Jacob who after wrestling with whom? - an angel of the Lord? The LORD God himself? - is renamed "Israel" meaning something like "he who has striven with God and survived." Jacob, who is the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, the archetype of the Twelve Disciples. Jacob who, through a series of credit arrangements and mortgage foreclosures leads his people, all 70 of them, into Egypt to escape famine and become slaves for the next several hundred years. Jacob the deceiver becomes the Israel of God. God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called!
Jacob saw angels ascending and descending a ladder as a sign of God's immanence, God's nearness to us. Now it is just Jesus and the angels, no intermediary structure is necessary: no ladder, no steps. Jesus is that intermediary. Jesus is the structure. Jesus who is with us even now, at this moment, in this Eucharist, present to us in bread and wine as his Body and Blood.
At the end of the day, it is all about God's nearness to us. God is at home, it is we who have gone out for a walk. There is the story of the preacher going all over town shouting, "Put God in your life, put God in your life!"' One day the local Rabbi stopped him and said, "God is already in our lives. God is already here! Our task is simply to realize that!"
Psalm 139 says as much. There is no way that we can distance ourselves from God. No matter to what ends of the earth or sea we might go, no matter how dark the darkness is, "You press behind me and before, and lay your hand on me." God searches us out. God knows us. God is with us wherever we are. Jesus, God's Word, God's Eternal Word of Love, came to be with us as one of us. I once was told that if you read Psalm 139 once a day for 30 days your life will change.
All this seems to suggest that until we believe that God is with us in the radical and intimate way in which Psalm 139 has it, we cannot even begin to set aside our preconceptions about Jesus and about one another. And until we set aside these preconceptions about God in Christ and one another, we cannot begin to know who Jesus is. And until we know and experience Jesus for who he really is, it is not likely that we, like Andrew and Philip, will run around town urging others to "Come and See!" It all begins with accepting God's eternal love and living out of that love. We have now just a short time to do this, but it is enough to enter the Kingdom of God. Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter's at Ellicott Mills
Come and See
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it... 14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. So begins the First Chapter of the Fourth Gospel. It ends with angels ascending and descending upon the son of man. Much of this chapter has to do with declaring who Jesus is, and how we are to respond to his presence among us.
Our portion records the second of two days of Jesus gathering disciples. The way in which John sees this happening, however, is that someone like Andrew meets Jesus, and is so excited he goes to find his brother Peter. Then in Galilee Jesus finds Philip, invites him to "follow me," and then Philip finds Nathanael. This is what disciples do throughout the gospel of John - they, not Jesus, go out to gather more followers. Disciples, like Philip, are constantly reaching out to new people and saying, "Come and see!" This is the normative pattern for growing the Christian community, says John. No slick marketing schemes, no seductive programs - one person experiences Jesus in his or her life and invites others to come and share that experience. The text means to challenge us, asking, "Just how often do we do this?"
Another discipleship theme is the recognition of Jesus' identity - from verse 35-51 Jesus is called "Rabbi"(v38), "the Messiah"(v41), "him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote"(v45), "Son of God"(vv34,49), "King of Israel"(v49), "Jesus, son of Joseph of Nazareth" (v45), to which Jesus adds his own, "Son of Man"(v51). All contribute important attributes of who Jesus is: one who fulfills scripture, one who answers Israel's hopes for a future leader, a new king like David or a prophet like Moses. All attributes people were looking for in the first century, and none of which or even all of which sum up who Jesus is. And none of them is identical to what the prologue has already told the reader, that Jesus is the Word-made-flesh, and the Word is God, and the Word is Light, and the Light is the life of the world!
We pray today to be illumined by this Light through Word and Sacraments so that we might "shine with the radiance of Christ's glory." It is easy to forget - Jesus is the Word, Jesus is the Sacrament. When asked at a liturgical conference how many sacraments there are, a nun replied, "Two: Christ and his Church. There are currently seven manifestations of these two sacraments that form the life of the Church." We are the Body of Christ, we are the sacrament of Christ for the world. Again the text means to ask: Are we shining with the radiance of Christ's glory?
The call of Nathanael by Philip stands out. It is the first time that witness to Jesus is met with resistance. "We have found the one....Jesus, son of Joseph of Nazareth," says Philip. What Nathanael thinks he knows about Jesus - that he is from Nazareth - is enough to determine what he can expect of Jesus ("Can anything good come out of Nazareth?") This too becomes a theme in the Fourth Gospel - people's preconceptions about Jesus can stand in the way of people's experience of Jesus.
Not much has changed in that regard. Not only do we all come with our own preconceptions about Jesus, but we all harbor preconceptions about one another. Note carefully that Jesus, on the other hand, who has every reason to be insulted by Nathanael's remark sees only the good that Nathanael can be and is - an Israelite without guile, as the King James had it, or without deceit, as we get it today. Nathanael is appropriately flummoxed - how do you know anything about me at all?!? Still somewhat antagonistic. Jesus starts talking about one of his favorite go-to topics, fig trees, indicating only that if you are the Word of God and you are God, you are expected to know these things!
Besides if you think my knowing that there is good in you for the building up of God's kingdom is something, you ain't seen nothing yet. You will see heaven opened and angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. This is a reference to the Son of Man language of the book of Daniel, and to Jacob's vision of angel's ascending and descending a ladder, or staircase - something like the ziggurats of central and south America. Which is to say, this is where earthly and heavenly, human and divine, meet. Jesus uses traditional Old Testament language and imagery to announce that God is in the neighborhood. This is what "the Word became flesh" ultimately means - God with us, Immanuel.
It is interesting to note that William Temple's translation regarding Nathanael has it, "Behold an Israelite in whom there is no Jacob." Jacob is the very prime representative of guile and deceit - he who was born grabbing his brother Esau by the heel in an attempt to be the first-born, he who stole his brother's birthright, he who was accused of stealing his father-in-laws best animals - Jacob who after wrestling with whom? - an angel of the Lord? The LORD God himself? - is renamed "Israel" meaning something like "he who has striven with God and survived." Jacob, who is the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, the archetype of the Twelve Disciples. Jacob who, through a series of credit arrangements and mortgage foreclosures leads his people, all 70 of them, into Egypt to escape famine and become slaves for the next several hundred years. Jacob the deceiver becomes the Israel of God. God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called!
Jacob saw angels ascending and descending a ladder as a sign of God's immanence, God's nearness to us. Now it is just Jesus and the angels, no intermediary structure is necessary: no ladder, no steps. Jesus is that intermediary. Jesus is the structure. Jesus who is with us even now, at this moment, in this Eucharist, present to us in bread and wine as his Body and Blood.
At the end of the day, it is all about God's nearness to us. God is at home, it is we who have gone out for a walk. There is the story of the preacher going all over town shouting, "Put God in your life, put God in your life!"' One day the local Rabbi stopped him and said, "God is already in our lives. God is already here! Our task is simply to realize that!"
Psalm 139 says as much. There is no way that we can distance ourselves from God. No matter to what ends of the earth or sea we might go, no matter how dark the darkness is, "You press behind me and before, and lay your hand on me." God searches us out. God knows us. God is with us wherever we are. Jesus, God's Word, God's Eternal Word of Love, came to be with us as one of us. I once was told that if you read Psalm 139 once a day for 30 days your life will change.
All this seems to suggest that until we believe that God is with us in the radical and intimate way in which Psalm 139 has it, we cannot even begin to set aside our preconceptions about Jesus and about one another. And until we set aside these preconceptions about God in Christ and one another, we cannot begin to know who Jesus is. And until we know and experience Jesus for who he really is, it is not likely that we, like Andrew and Philip, will run around town urging others to "Come and See!" It all begins with accepting God's eternal love and living out of that love. We have now just a short time to do this, but it is enough to enter the Kingdom of God. Amen.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Breathing Lessons
1 January 2012 The Feast of the Holy Name
Or, The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. You can look up its history in Wikipedia. You will find that it has been celebrated on many different dates. January 1 is quite possibly the most logical, since in the Jewish tradition of Jesus, baby boys are circumcised and name on the eighth day, and January 1 is the eighth day after Christmas.
Naming is important throughout the Bible. The opening acts of creation are the naming of things, beginning with, “Light!” That is what God says. The “Let there be….” is added to make it “sound better” in English.
Then in Deuteronomy, I believe, God orders the building of a more permanent domicile than the “tent of meeting” or “tabernacle” – a Temple is to be built to exacting specifications: “Then there shall be a place which the LORD your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there; there shall you bring all that I command you; your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave offering of your hand, and all your choice offerings which you vow unto the LORD.” Deut 12:11
Note the important distinction here. Unlike other temples in the ancient world of the Hebrew people, God does not dwell in the Temple – only God’s name.
As to God’s name, Moses learns this at the burning bush: “4God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “I am has sent me to you.” ’ 15God also said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you”: This is my name for ever, and this my title for all generations.” Exodus 3:15-16
That would seem to have settled it, but alas, we humans are not so easily convinced. We have a need to name things ourselves, no doubt a carry-over from our ancestor Adam who was given the task of naming all the creatures in God’s creation in hopes of finding a soul mate. We didn’t stop there, and have multiplied the names of God out toward infinity, which is in itself a rather amazing if not puzzling concept.
The tradition of Jesus has as the most formal name for the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus four naked consonants: roughly YHWH in our alphabet, yodh-he-vav-he in Biblical Hebrew. Biblical Hebrew had no vowel markings. Reading the text correctly depended on oral tradition passing on the pronunciation from one generation to another. Further complications include that when the Masoretic text was formalized with vowel markings (6th – 9th centures ce), those in charge intentionally put the wrong vowels with YHWH since it has long been forbidden by tradition to pronounce the divine name in public. The vowels assigned are for the word Adonai, which also roughly means God for our purposes, but just is not the proper name. And so that is what is read in synagogue when YHWH shows up in the Torah texts. (This was mistakenly corrupted into Jehovah several hundred years ago by gentiles who had no idea what they were doing – Jehovah not being a “real word” at all.) Whenever Jesus says, "I am," his first century constituents would associate him with the great "I Am" of the burning bush.
Why all this background on this Feast of the Holy Name? It is fascinating to note that in less than the first hundred years after Jesus rose from the dead, he was assigned no fewer than 200 different names in New Testament literature! The first, of course, is Jesus, the name told to Mary and the Shepherds by the angel. “The Word,” or in Greek “The Logos,” is perhaps the most mysterious, assigned by the author of the Fourth Gospel in its majestic opening verses.
Emmanuel, or Immanuel, however, stemming from an otherwise obscure verse in the writings of the prophet Isaiah (7:14), may very well be among the most important names given to the child circumcised eight days after his birth. It means quite simply, “God with us.” That, as it turns out, is the sense of the opening verses of John – the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. Jesus is God dwelling among us. This is the scandal of Christianity.
Now the Hindus and the Greeks were quite comfortable with the idea of manifestations of God living among humans, messing with us, cavorting with us and so on. The Hindus and Greeks were and are comfortable with “God” (eg Brahman) having many names, many manifestations. It turns out that when we look more carefully at our tradition, we share this same comfort. It is one of the curses of radical monotheism that we tend to convince ourselves that One God can only have One Name. Just google “Names for Jesus” and you will find over 200 options that accrued in the first century. The Quran lists no fewer than 99 names for the One God, Allah.
Among the names for Jesus is the idea advanced by Isaiah and John that Jesus, the Word, the Word that is with God and is God, is also Immanuel – God with us. Jesus is God. God is with us.
So the Holy Name we honor with this feast is nothing less than the Holy Name of God – Jesus, Immanuel, the Word, I am who I am, Yahweh. We throw “Jesus” around rather casually and indiscriminately. We pretend to know all about him, when in fact God is ultimately unknowable and yet knowable all at once.
I would like to end with this short chapter from Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now as it pertains to God’s Holy Name, YaHWeH, I am who I am, The Great Unspeakable Name:
"This unspeakability has long been recognized, but we now know it goes deeper: formally the word was not spoken at all, but breathed. Many are convinced that its correct pronunciation is an attempt to replicate and imitate the very sound of inhalation and exhalation. The one thing we do every moment of our lives is therefore to speak the name of God. This makes it our first and our last word as we enter and leave the world.
"For some years now, I have taught this to contemplative groups in many countries, and it changes people faith and prayer lives in substantial ways. I remind people that there is no Islamic, Christian or Jewish, way of breathing. There is no American, African, or Asian way of breathing. There is no rich or poor way of breathing. The playing field is leveled. . The air of the earth is one and the same air, and this divine wind "blows where it will (John 3:8) - which appears to be everywhere. No one and no religion can control this spirit.
"When considered in this way, God is suddenly as available and accessible as the very thing we all do constantly - breathe. Exactly as some teachers of prayer always said, 'Stay with the breath, attend to your breath': the same breath that was breathed into Adam's nostrils by this Yahweh (Genesis 2: 7); the very breath that Jesus hands over with trust on the cross (John 19:30) and then breathed on us as shalom, forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit all at once (John 20:21-23). And isn't it wonderful that breath, wind, spirit, and air are precisely nothing - and yet everything!
"Just keep breathing consciously in this way and you will know that you are connected to humanity from cavemen to cosmonauts, to the entire animal world, even to the trees and plants. And we are now told that the atoms we breathe are physically the same as the stardust from the original Big Bang. Oneness is no longer merely a vague mystical notion, but a scientific fact!"
- Richard Rohr, The Naked Now (Crossroad, New York: 2009) p. 25-26
So this is what The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus offers us: the insight that every breath we take from first to last is “saying” the Holy Name of God. Be attentive to each breath. God is with you. The Word dwells in our very midst. This is not only good news, it is the best news! What more could we possibly want? Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek
Saint Peter's at Ellicott Mills
Or, The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. You can look up its history in Wikipedia. You will find that it has been celebrated on many different dates. January 1 is quite possibly the most logical, since in the Jewish tradition of Jesus, baby boys are circumcised and name on the eighth day, and January 1 is the eighth day after Christmas.
Naming is important throughout the Bible. The opening acts of creation are the naming of things, beginning with, “Light!” That is what God says. The “Let there be….” is added to make it “sound better” in English.
Then in Deuteronomy, I believe, God orders the building of a more permanent domicile than the “tent of meeting” or “tabernacle” – a Temple is to be built to exacting specifications: “Then there shall be a place which the LORD your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there; there shall you bring all that I command you; your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave offering of your hand, and all your choice offerings which you vow unto the LORD.” Deut 12:11
Note the important distinction here. Unlike other temples in the ancient world of the Hebrew people, God does not dwell in the Temple – only God’s name.
As to God’s name, Moses learns this at the burning bush: “4God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “I am has sent me to you.” ’ 15God also said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you”: This is my name for ever, and this my title for all generations.” Exodus 3:15-16
That would seem to have settled it, but alas, we humans are not so easily convinced. We have a need to name things ourselves, no doubt a carry-over from our ancestor Adam who was given the task of naming all the creatures in God’s creation in hopes of finding a soul mate. We didn’t stop there, and have multiplied the names of God out toward infinity, which is in itself a rather amazing if not puzzling concept.
The tradition of Jesus has as the most formal name for the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus four naked consonants: roughly YHWH in our alphabet, yodh-he-vav-he in Biblical Hebrew. Biblical Hebrew had no vowel markings. Reading the text correctly depended on oral tradition passing on the pronunciation from one generation to another. Further complications include that when the Masoretic text was formalized with vowel markings (6th – 9th centures ce), those in charge intentionally put the wrong vowels with YHWH since it has long been forbidden by tradition to pronounce the divine name in public. The vowels assigned are for the word Adonai, which also roughly means God for our purposes, but just is not the proper name. And so that is what is read in synagogue when YHWH shows up in the Torah texts. (This was mistakenly corrupted into Jehovah several hundred years ago by gentiles who had no idea what they were doing – Jehovah not being a “real word” at all.) Whenever Jesus says, "I am," his first century constituents would associate him with the great "I Am" of the burning bush.
Why all this background on this Feast of the Holy Name? It is fascinating to note that in less than the first hundred years after Jesus rose from the dead, he was assigned no fewer than 200 different names in New Testament literature! The first, of course, is Jesus, the name told to Mary and the Shepherds by the angel. “The Word,” or in Greek “The Logos,” is perhaps the most mysterious, assigned by the author of the Fourth Gospel in its majestic opening verses.
Emmanuel, or Immanuel, however, stemming from an otherwise obscure verse in the writings of the prophet Isaiah (7:14), may very well be among the most important names given to the child circumcised eight days after his birth. It means quite simply, “God with us.” That, as it turns out, is the sense of the opening verses of John – the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. Jesus is God dwelling among us. This is the scandal of Christianity.
Now the Hindus and the Greeks were quite comfortable with the idea of manifestations of God living among humans, messing with us, cavorting with us and so on. The Hindus and Greeks were and are comfortable with “God” (eg Brahman) having many names, many manifestations. It turns out that when we look more carefully at our tradition, we share this same comfort. It is one of the curses of radical monotheism that we tend to convince ourselves that One God can only have One Name. Just google “Names for Jesus” and you will find over 200 options that accrued in the first century. The Quran lists no fewer than 99 names for the One God, Allah.
Among the names for Jesus is the idea advanced by Isaiah and John that Jesus, the Word, the Word that is with God and is God, is also Immanuel – God with us. Jesus is God. God is with us.
So the Holy Name we honor with this feast is nothing less than the Holy Name of God – Jesus, Immanuel, the Word, I am who I am, Yahweh. We throw “Jesus” around rather casually and indiscriminately. We pretend to know all about him, when in fact God is ultimately unknowable and yet knowable all at once.
I would like to end with this short chapter from Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now as it pertains to God’s Holy Name, YaHWeH, I am who I am, The Great Unspeakable Name:
"This unspeakability has long been recognized, but we now know it goes deeper: formally the word was not spoken at all, but breathed. Many are convinced that its correct pronunciation is an attempt to replicate and imitate the very sound of inhalation and exhalation. The one thing we do every moment of our lives is therefore to speak the name of God. This makes it our first and our last word as we enter and leave the world.
"For some years now, I have taught this to contemplative groups in many countries, and it changes people faith and prayer lives in substantial ways. I remind people that there is no Islamic, Christian or Jewish, way of breathing. There is no American, African, or Asian way of breathing. There is no rich or poor way of breathing. The playing field is leveled. . The air of the earth is one and the same air, and this divine wind "blows where it will (John 3:8) - which appears to be everywhere. No one and no religion can control this spirit.
"When considered in this way, God is suddenly as available and accessible as the very thing we all do constantly - breathe. Exactly as some teachers of prayer always said, 'Stay with the breath, attend to your breath': the same breath that was breathed into Adam's nostrils by this Yahweh (Genesis 2: 7); the very breath that Jesus hands over with trust on the cross (John 19:30) and then breathed on us as shalom, forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit all at once (John 20:21-23). And isn't it wonderful that breath, wind, spirit, and air are precisely nothing - and yet everything!
"Just keep breathing consciously in this way and you will know that you are connected to humanity from cavemen to cosmonauts, to the entire animal world, even to the trees and plants. And we are now told that the atoms we breathe are physically the same as the stardust from the original Big Bang. Oneness is no longer merely a vague mystical notion, but a scientific fact!"
- Richard Rohr, The Naked Now (Crossroad, New York: 2009) p. 25-26
So this is what The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus offers us: the insight that every breath we take from first to last is “saying” the Holy Name of God. Be attentive to each breath. God is with you. The Word dwells in our very midst. This is not only good news, it is the best news! What more could we possibly want? Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek
Saint Peter's at Ellicott Mills
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Gaudete Sunday - Rejoice!
11 December 2011/Advent 3B –Magnificat/Psalm 126/1 Thessalonians 5:16-24/John 1:6-8,19-28
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Advent Wreath: Part 1
Advent means “coming.” What is coming is the coming of Christ – as in “Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.” For four weeks before Christmas Christians reflect on this promised return of Christ as we prepare to celebrate the feast of his birth – the baby Jesus, Emmanuel – God with us.
Ancient Northern Europeans often made evergreen wreaths long before Christianity. According to Wikipedia: “The circle symbolized the eternal cycle of the seasons while the evergreens and lighted candles signified the persistence of life in the midst of winter. Some sources suggest the wreath—now reinterpreted as a Christian symbol—was in common use in the Middle Ages, others that it was established in Germany as a Christian custom only in the 16th century.” With some scholars insisting it was adapted in 19th Century Germany. All that is clear is that it was first a so-called pagan practice adopted by the church well into the Christian era.
One notes that as we light a new candle each week in Advent, the days are getting shorter and darker. Until that day when a new light shines in the darkness – Christmas – the birth of Jesus, of whom Saint John writes that he is the light that shines in the darkness, the darkness has not overcome the light, the light is the life of men.
There is a story about the evergreen trees and shrubs. When the great Creator Spirit was creating the world, he wished to give a gift to each creature. He set up a kind of a contest to determine just what gifts would be most fitting for which living things he had placed upon the earth. In the deep of winter he ordered all the trees of the forest to stay awake and keep watch over all creation for seven days and seven nights, and those that did would receive a special gift.
Well, the trees were all so excited to have been given such an important task that none of them could even think of sleeping the first night. Over the next few nights, however, one after another started falling asleep, until finally on the seventh day only the firs, balsams, spruces, hollies, junipers, and laurels were still awake and keeping watch. The great Creator Spirit proclaimed, “You have done well! I will give you the gift of being green year round so that in the dead of winter other creatures may find shelter and care among your branches!”
Advent means to remind Christians that we are those people called and chosen by God to be watching and waiting, keeping guard over all creation – for so God did create us, male and female, in God's own image, that we might rule and serve all God’s creatures and all of creation.
We are called to be an Evergreen People – others are meant to take refuge among our branches. We are to watch over and care for those in need. God came to us as Jesus to help us to remember who we are and whose we are – who we were created to be in the first place. We are to be the light shining in the darkest days, ever green in the most barren, cold and difficult times and places. Advent is a time for us to think on these things as we watch and wait for Christ to return to our lives, our hearts and souls. Prepare him a place in your heart and become an evergreen person of God. Amen.
Advent Wreath: Part 2
Although traditional Advent Wreathes have red or purple candles, and sometimes a white “Christ” candle in the center, the Sarum usage at Salisbury Cathedral in England calls for blue candles – symbolizing “hope” and “waiting.” Advent is a time of hope and waiting – hope and waiting for the coming of Christ.
No one knew this better than Mary – a mere teenage child by today’s standards. Traditionally the Third Sunday of Advent shifts our focus to Mary, and often a rose colored candle is used on this Third Sunday. Called Gaudete Sunday – Latin for “Rejoice,” a key word in all of our scripture for today. Though one well might ask just what a young, pregnant teenage girl has to rejoice about!
The clues lie in our scriptures that reveal the history of our people, the people of God. Writes St. Paul to the Church in Thessalonika, "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing....for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." For years I have found this to be the most mysterious and probably most important task we are given - to pray without ceasing! Pray always. May all of your life be a prayer. All that we do and all that we say is meant to be a prayer. How does one do this?
Mary knows. When all is said and done, the babe is born, the shepherds have shared the news with anyone who will listen, we are told that Mary ponders these things in her heart. I suspect she began her pondering back with the angel Gabriel announcing that she, a young girl, unmarried at that, would bear a child - and not just any child, but God's child. It is the kind of news that is likely to set you to ponder many things.
I have come to think that this pondering, or prayer without ceasing, finds its origins in something like centering prayer. And that once one has entered the realm of oneness with God and with others, all kinds of prayers begin to manifest themselves. Look at Mary. The Magnificat, The Song of Mary, bursts forth from her pondering heart.
Like Paul, she too speaks of Rejoicing "in God my Savior." All this pondering has helped her to feel blessed. And then she has a vision - the proud shall be scattered, the mighty cast down, the lowly lifted up and the rich sent empty away! It is an animating vision. One that were I to hazard a guess still animates people all around the world, from Occupy Wall Street, Main Street, Whatever Street, to the streets of places as far away as Russia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen.
For those of us who do not spend much time pondering, do we even recognize that what Mary sings about, what Mary's poetry proclaims, amidst a climate of military occupations, mortgage foreclosures, monstrous indebtedness and the like - do we even recognize that what she imagines the Lord can do is happening before our very eyes?
Gaudete Sunday is a time to Rejoice with Mary, with the Psalmist in Psalm 126, with Paul, and even with John the Baptizer who is pictured going to great pains to point out that he is not the one they are looking for, but The One is here. The Advent Wreath means to draw our attention to all this on this Third Sunday of Advent as we find ourselves once again sitting and standing before what is perhaps one of the strangest and yet most wonderful images of Christ's real presence - Jesus hanging in the palm trees.
Not so strange, however, in the middle east, in Israel, where date palm trees are the coin of the realm. The date palm is thought to be The Original Tree - the one "in the Garden of Eden." (Or, "Inagodadavida"...for those of a certain age)
When one is in Israel one notices that every olive wood crèche, large or small, has a palm tree in front of the shed. And that might not be something you notice all that much until you learn that 1) all the olive wood crèches are made by Muslim artisans in Bethlehem, and 2) the palm tree plays a key role in the Koran's portrayal of the birth of Jesus.
It may come as a surprise that Mary is venerated as a woman among women in Islam, and that as she is in labor she grabs onto a palm tree. A voice, thought by some to some from the child in her womb, tells her that there is a river flowing beneath the tree, and to shake the palm tree so dates will pour down to nourish and relieve the pains of childbirth. The tree shakes, the dates rain down, a child is born. The same story appears in an apocryphal gospel of Matthew as well!
So whether it is the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, or the tree that mid-wifed the virgin birth, Jesus is surely at home in those trees - perhaps even crucified on a date palm where he hands over his spirit, his breath, his life to any of us who will receive it.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Have a blessed Gaudete Sunday as we watch and wait for our Lord to enter into our lives. Let every heart, prepare him room so we are ready to receive him as he hands his Spirit over to us. Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Advent Wreath: Part 1
Advent means “coming.” What is coming is the coming of Christ – as in “Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.” For four weeks before Christmas Christians reflect on this promised return of Christ as we prepare to celebrate the feast of his birth – the baby Jesus, Emmanuel – God with us.
Ancient Northern Europeans often made evergreen wreaths long before Christianity. According to Wikipedia: “The circle symbolized the eternal cycle of the seasons while the evergreens and lighted candles signified the persistence of life in the midst of winter. Some sources suggest the wreath—now reinterpreted as a Christian symbol—was in common use in the Middle Ages, others that it was established in Germany as a Christian custom only in the 16th century.” With some scholars insisting it was adapted in 19th Century Germany. All that is clear is that it was first a so-called pagan practice adopted by the church well into the Christian era.
One notes that as we light a new candle each week in Advent, the days are getting shorter and darker. Until that day when a new light shines in the darkness – Christmas – the birth of Jesus, of whom Saint John writes that he is the light that shines in the darkness, the darkness has not overcome the light, the light is the life of men.
There is a story about the evergreen trees and shrubs. When the great Creator Spirit was creating the world, he wished to give a gift to each creature. He set up a kind of a contest to determine just what gifts would be most fitting for which living things he had placed upon the earth. In the deep of winter he ordered all the trees of the forest to stay awake and keep watch over all creation for seven days and seven nights, and those that did would receive a special gift.
Well, the trees were all so excited to have been given such an important task that none of them could even think of sleeping the first night. Over the next few nights, however, one after another started falling asleep, until finally on the seventh day only the firs, balsams, spruces, hollies, junipers, and laurels were still awake and keeping watch. The great Creator Spirit proclaimed, “You have done well! I will give you the gift of being green year round so that in the dead of winter other creatures may find shelter and care among your branches!”
Advent means to remind Christians that we are those people called and chosen by God to be watching and waiting, keeping guard over all creation – for so God did create us, male and female, in God's own image, that we might rule and serve all God’s creatures and all of creation.
We are called to be an Evergreen People – others are meant to take refuge among our branches. We are to watch over and care for those in need. God came to us as Jesus to help us to remember who we are and whose we are – who we were created to be in the first place. We are to be the light shining in the darkest days, ever green in the most barren, cold and difficult times and places. Advent is a time for us to think on these things as we watch and wait for Christ to return to our lives, our hearts and souls. Prepare him a place in your heart and become an evergreen person of God. Amen.
Advent Wreath: Part 2
Although traditional Advent Wreathes have red or purple candles, and sometimes a white “Christ” candle in the center, the Sarum usage at Salisbury Cathedral in England calls for blue candles – symbolizing “hope” and “waiting.” Advent is a time of hope and waiting – hope and waiting for the coming of Christ.
No one knew this better than Mary – a mere teenage child by today’s standards. Traditionally the Third Sunday of Advent shifts our focus to Mary, and often a rose colored candle is used on this Third Sunday. Called Gaudete Sunday – Latin for “Rejoice,” a key word in all of our scripture for today. Though one well might ask just what a young, pregnant teenage girl has to rejoice about!
The clues lie in our scriptures that reveal the history of our people, the people of God. Writes St. Paul to the Church in Thessalonika, "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing....for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." For years I have found this to be the most mysterious and probably most important task we are given - to pray without ceasing! Pray always. May all of your life be a prayer. All that we do and all that we say is meant to be a prayer. How does one do this?
Mary knows. When all is said and done, the babe is born, the shepherds have shared the news with anyone who will listen, we are told that Mary ponders these things in her heart. I suspect she began her pondering back with the angel Gabriel announcing that she, a young girl, unmarried at that, would bear a child - and not just any child, but God's child. It is the kind of news that is likely to set you to ponder many things.
I have come to think that this pondering, or prayer without ceasing, finds its origins in something like centering prayer. And that once one has entered the realm of oneness with God and with others, all kinds of prayers begin to manifest themselves. Look at Mary. The Magnificat, The Song of Mary, bursts forth from her pondering heart.
Like Paul, she too speaks of Rejoicing "in God my Savior." All this pondering has helped her to feel blessed. And then she has a vision - the proud shall be scattered, the mighty cast down, the lowly lifted up and the rich sent empty away! It is an animating vision. One that were I to hazard a guess still animates people all around the world, from Occupy Wall Street, Main Street, Whatever Street, to the streets of places as far away as Russia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen.
For those of us who do not spend much time pondering, do we even recognize that what Mary sings about, what Mary's poetry proclaims, amidst a climate of military occupations, mortgage foreclosures, monstrous indebtedness and the like - do we even recognize that what she imagines the Lord can do is happening before our very eyes?
Gaudete Sunday is a time to Rejoice with Mary, with the Psalmist in Psalm 126, with Paul, and even with John the Baptizer who is pictured going to great pains to point out that he is not the one they are looking for, but The One is here. The Advent Wreath means to draw our attention to all this on this Third Sunday of Advent as we find ourselves once again sitting and standing before what is perhaps one of the strangest and yet most wonderful images of Christ's real presence - Jesus hanging in the palm trees.
Not so strange, however, in the middle east, in Israel, where date palm trees are the coin of the realm. The date palm is thought to be The Original Tree - the one "in the Garden of Eden." (Or, "Inagodadavida"...for those of a certain age)
When one is in Israel one notices that every olive wood crèche, large or small, has a palm tree in front of the shed. And that might not be something you notice all that much until you learn that 1) all the olive wood crèches are made by Muslim artisans in Bethlehem, and 2) the palm tree plays a key role in the Koran's portrayal of the birth of Jesus.
It may come as a surprise that Mary is venerated as a woman among women in Islam, and that as she is in labor she grabs onto a palm tree. A voice, thought by some to some from the child in her womb, tells her that there is a river flowing beneath the tree, and to shake the palm tree so dates will pour down to nourish and relieve the pains of childbirth. The tree shakes, the dates rain down, a child is born. The same story appears in an apocryphal gospel of Matthew as well!
So whether it is the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, or the tree that mid-wifed the virgin birth, Jesus is surely at home in those trees - perhaps even crucified on a date palm where he hands over his spirit, his breath, his life to any of us who will receive it.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Have a blessed Gaudete Sunday as we watch and wait for our Lord to enter into our lives. Let every heart, prepare him room so we are ready to receive him as he hands his Spirit over to us. Amen.
Friday, December 9, 2011
In Memoriam Myra Maureen Frazier
In Memoriam
Myra Maureen Frazier 1968-2011
Martha and Mary were sisters. Their brother Lazarus had been sick. They had called for their dear friend Jesus, knowing that He was of God. The text is clear, it says “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” He delays going, and when he does go his disciples try to talk him out of going because the region around Bethany was too dangerous with people trying to stone him and others already conspiring to have him arrested. As further sign of his deep love, Jesus replies, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.”
Meanwhile, Martha and Mary are at home sitting shiva, the Jewish custom of mourning. Friends and neighbors surround them, much as we come to be with Myra's family and one another as we seek comfort and consolation at having lost “our friend,” Myra. Word comes to the sisters that Jesus has approached the outskirts of Bethany. Always the practical one, always the one seeing to it that others needs are met, Martha goes to meet Jesus before he gets to the house. She has some business with him that is better kept at a distance from the house and those who are comforting the family – she seems to want to spare them hearing what she has to say.
And what she has to say is what we all want to say at a time like this: Lord, if you had been here, Lord if you had heard our prayers, Lord if you had done something, come sooner, our brother Lazarus would not have had to die! Martha is not a shy one. She may appear so while taking care of others, busy behind the scenes, but when the times demanded it she could stand up to anyone, including Jesus.
Jesus tells her that Lazarus will rise again. Martha, believing he is talking about some hypothetical future when all the dead shall rise again says in effect, “Sure, sure, we all know that, but I am talking about now.” Jesus responds, “I am now. I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Martha immediately knows he is right. Martha immediately sees Jesus as if for the first time – He is of God, He is resurrection, He is life. And speaking on behalf of all of us here this morning, and for all people who mourn at all times and in all places, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” When she had said this, the text continues, she went and told Mary who got up and left the house to go see Jesus, and everyone in the house followed. Jesus saw Mary and everyone with her weeping and was “deeply moved.” They go to the tomb, Jesus calls Lazarus out, and orders everyone, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
This is the hard part. This is the hard part for all of us: letting go. We are here because we love Myra and all that she was, is and continues to be: daughter, sister, cousin, aunt, friend, and someone who reached out to help those in deep need, the underserved, and this earth, our fragile island home. It is doubly hard for everyone here, since it is likely to be some time before we have any idea exactly how she died, how it is that she has been taken away from us.
What we can be certain of, however, is that Myra had courage and desire like Martha to tackle two of the most important problems facing the world today: the ecology/environmental problem and the economic problem. Myra was out in front, like Martha, alerting us to what can be done in both arenas, and doing something about it. Lives have been changed, and the very structure of the earth has been changed and preserved as a result of her dedication, knowledge and will.
As we come to mourn and comfort one another, we also come to remember and celebrate the life of this remarkable woman.
Myra received her law degree from Duke University
She began her nearly 15 years of experience in the energy and environmental fields as a Fulbright Fellow in Libreville, Gabon, Africa.
She later worked at the US Environmental Protection Agency implementing technical cooperation between the US and South African Governments, focused on energy plicy planning, air quality management and climate mitigation strategies.
Myra also worked on the litigation team that negotiated the Consent Agreement Final Order with the Concentrated Animal Feedlot industry - an agreement accepted by over 8,000 farms in 37 states.
Recently she has been a contract attorney for a variety of energy and technology companies,
And perhaps her greatest passion has been working to help families in Maryland avoid foreclosure on their homes.
And here at St. Peter's she has been an extraordinary advisor to our Green Team, and has served on the Bishop of Maryland's Task Force On The Environment for the past few years.
Several people have submitted Tributes to Myra which we would like to share with you now....
---------------
The most basic truth of the Judeo-Christian religion is that we come from Love, we return to Love and Love is all around. God is Love. Myra now knows this. Just as Martha goes before everyone else to greet Jesus at the edge of town, so Myra has gone ahead of us to meet and be greeted by her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Myra has been and will continue to be so much a part of God’s love surrounding us on all sides – she brought us all closer to God, closer to each other and closer to ourselves. What a wonderful life’s work!
How fitting that the church is decorated for Easter – The Feast of the Resurrection. The Paschal Candle, first lit on Easter Eve in the darkness shines brightly - the light that shines in the Darkness, the light of Christ. The Light that John says the Darkness has not and cannot overcome. It stands near the Baptismal Font, marking that place where we enter into the fellowship of Christ’s Body, the Church, The entry point into eternal life.
For we are those people who believe that life is changed, not ended, at death. And when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for us a dwelling place eternal in the heavens.
Once baptized into the body of Christ, St. Paul asserts "neither death, nor life, nor angels , nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Myra knows this to be true. She has been unbound. She is set free. She now joins with Martha and all those who throughout the ages proclaim, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
So we come to mourn. We come to comfort one another. We come to remember and celebrate and give thanks for a life faithfully lived and more faithfully set free. And we come to affirm our faith, Myra's faith, and the faith of the Church.
A Catholic priest and monk, Henri Nouwen, observed on the death of his mother: In those confusing weeks after my mother’s death I said to myself, “This is a time of waiting for the Spirit of truth to come, and woe unto me, if by forgetting her, I prevent her from doing God’s work in me.” I sensed that something much more than a filial act of remembering was at stake, much more than an honoring of my dead mother, much more than holding on to her beautiful example. Very specifically, what was at stake was the life of the Spirit in me. To remember her does not mean telling her story over and over again to my friends, nor does it mean pictures on the wall or a stone at her grave; it does not even mean constantly thinking about her. No. It means making her an active participant of God’s ongoing work of redemption by allowing her to dispel in me a little more of my darkness and lead me a little closer to the light. In these weeks of mourning she died in me more and more every day, making it impossible for me to cling to her as my mother. Yet by letting her go I did not lose her. Rather, I found that she is closer to me than ever. In and through the Spirit of Christ, she indeed, is becoming a part of my very being.
[In Memoriam, p. 60]
Myra is now at one with God's light, the Light of Christ. She came to this church week after week and affirmed this. She stood in this church week after week the past few years to affirm her faith in Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Let us stand, turning to page 496 in the Red Book of Common Prayer, and In the assurance of eternal life given at Baptism, let us proclaim our faith:
Myra Maureen Frazier 1968-2011
Martha and Mary were sisters. Their brother Lazarus had been sick. They had called for their dear friend Jesus, knowing that He was of God. The text is clear, it says “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” He delays going, and when he does go his disciples try to talk him out of going because the region around Bethany was too dangerous with people trying to stone him and others already conspiring to have him arrested. As further sign of his deep love, Jesus replies, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.”
Meanwhile, Martha and Mary are at home sitting shiva, the Jewish custom of mourning. Friends and neighbors surround them, much as we come to be with Myra's family and one another as we seek comfort and consolation at having lost “our friend,” Myra. Word comes to the sisters that Jesus has approached the outskirts of Bethany. Always the practical one, always the one seeing to it that others needs are met, Martha goes to meet Jesus before he gets to the house. She has some business with him that is better kept at a distance from the house and those who are comforting the family – she seems to want to spare them hearing what she has to say.
And what she has to say is what we all want to say at a time like this: Lord, if you had been here, Lord if you had heard our prayers, Lord if you had done something, come sooner, our brother Lazarus would not have had to die! Martha is not a shy one. She may appear so while taking care of others, busy behind the scenes, but when the times demanded it she could stand up to anyone, including Jesus.
Jesus tells her that Lazarus will rise again. Martha, believing he is talking about some hypothetical future when all the dead shall rise again says in effect, “Sure, sure, we all know that, but I am talking about now.” Jesus responds, “I am now. I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Martha immediately knows he is right. Martha immediately sees Jesus as if for the first time – He is of God, He is resurrection, He is life. And speaking on behalf of all of us here this morning, and for all people who mourn at all times and in all places, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” When she had said this, the text continues, she went and told Mary who got up and left the house to go see Jesus, and everyone in the house followed. Jesus saw Mary and everyone with her weeping and was “deeply moved.” They go to the tomb, Jesus calls Lazarus out, and orders everyone, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
This is the hard part. This is the hard part for all of us: letting go. We are here because we love Myra and all that she was, is and continues to be: daughter, sister, cousin, aunt, friend, and someone who reached out to help those in deep need, the underserved, and this earth, our fragile island home. It is doubly hard for everyone here, since it is likely to be some time before we have any idea exactly how she died, how it is that she has been taken away from us.
What we can be certain of, however, is that Myra had courage and desire like Martha to tackle two of the most important problems facing the world today: the ecology/environmental problem and the economic problem. Myra was out in front, like Martha, alerting us to what can be done in both arenas, and doing something about it. Lives have been changed, and the very structure of the earth has been changed and preserved as a result of her dedication, knowledge and will.
As we come to mourn and comfort one another, we also come to remember and celebrate the life of this remarkable woman.
Myra received her law degree from Duke University
She began her nearly 15 years of experience in the energy and environmental fields as a Fulbright Fellow in Libreville, Gabon, Africa.
She later worked at the US Environmental Protection Agency implementing technical cooperation between the US and South African Governments, focused on energy plicy planning, air quality management and climate mitigation strategies.
Myra also worked on the litigation team that negotiated the Consent Agreement Final Order with the Concentrated Animal Feedlot industry - an agreement accepted by over 8,000 farms in 37 states.
Recently she has been a contract attorney for a variety of energy and technology companies,
And perhaps her greatest passion has been working to help families in Maryland avoid foreclosure on their homes.
And here at St. Peter's she has been an extraordinary advisor to our Green Team, and has served on the Bishop of Maryland's Task Force On The Environment for the past few years.
Several people have submitted Tributes to Myra which we would like to share with you now....
---------------
The most basic truth of the Judeo-Christian religion is that we come from Love, we return to Love and Love is all around. God is Love. Myra now knows this. Just as Martha goes before everyone else to greet Jesus at the edge of town, so Myra has gone ahead of us to meet and be greeted by her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Myra has been and will continue to be so much a part of God’s love surrounding us on all sides – she brought us all closer to God, closer to each other and closer to ourselves. What a wonderful life’s work!
How fitting that the church is decorated for Easter – The Feast of the Resurrection. The Paschal Candle, first lit on Easter Eve in the darkness shines brightly - the light that shines in the Darkness, the light of Christ. The Light that John says the Darkness has not and cannot overcome. It stands near the Baptismal Font, marking that place where we enter into the fellowship of Christ’s Body, the Church, The entry point into eternal life.
For we are those people who believe that life is changed, not ended, at death. And when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for us a dwelling place eternal in the heavens.
Once baptized into the body of Christ, St. Paul asserts "neither death, nor life, nor angels , nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Myra knows this to be true. She has been unbound. She is set free. She now joins with Martha and all those who throughout the ages proclaim, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
So we come to mourn. We come to comfort one another. We come to remember and celebrate and give thanks for a life faithfully lived and more faithfully set free. And we come to affirm our faith, Myra's faith, and the faith of the Church.
A Catholic priest and monk, Henri Nouwen, observed on the death of his mother: In those confusing weeks after my mother’s death I said to myself, “This is a time of waiting for the Spirit of truth to come, and woe unto me, if by forgetting her, I prevent her from doing God’s work in me.” I sensed that something much more than a filial act of remembering was at stake, much more than an honoring of my dead mother, much more than holding on to her beautiful example. Very specifically, what was at stake was the life of the Spirit in me. To remember her does not mean telling her story over and over again to my friends, nor does it mean pictures on the wall or a stone at her grave; it does not even mean constantly thinking about her. No. It means making her an active participant of God’s ongoing work of redemption by allowing her to dispel in me a little more of my darkness and lead me a little closer to the light. In these weeks of mourning she died in me more and more every day, making it impossible for me to cling to her as my mother. Yet by letting her go I did not lose her. Rather, I found that she is closer to me than ever. In and through the Spirit of Christ, she indeed, is becoming a part of my very being.
[In Memoriam, p. 60]
Myra is now at one with God's light, the Light of Christ. She came to this church week after week and affirmed this. She stood in this church week after week the past few years to affirm her faith in Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Let us stand, turning to page 496 in the Red Book of Common Prayer, and In the assurance of eternal life given at Baptism, let us proclaim our faith:
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Apocalypse Now
27 November 2011/Advent 1B - Isaiah 64:1-9/1 Corinthians 1:3-9/Mark 13:24-37
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter's at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Keep Awake: Turn Back
It has been observed that we sleepwalk through much of life. The ritual and busyness of the familiar, the routine, carries us forward like an ever flowing stream. School started in August. Halloween and Thanksgiving have come and gone. The ritual observances of Christmas have begun with the consumer driven madness of Black Friday, now become Black Thursday and Small Business Saturday!
Each of these "end-times" has a procedural set of expectations, rituals, traditions which we can predictably sleepwalk our way through year after year after year - business as usual.
Then in the midst of our ritual march toward Christmas intrudes this odd bit of scripture from Mark - Mark, who has no birth story of Jesus and for that matter no resurrection appearance either. It is called the Little Apocalypse. Jewish Apocalyptic literature plays a key role in hard times. Scenes like this one are meant to buck up a people weary of having the goodness of God's creation disrupted by the vagaries of occupation, exile, social and economic chaos and disintegration, militaristic solutions and the like.
Throughout the history of Israel, the need for apocalyptic was a regular occurrence. At the time of Jesus the country was under the military occupation of Rome, and the rigid demands of the aristocratic religious leadership of the Temple. Not long after Jesus the people attempted two unsuccessful revolts. By the time Mark's gospel had taken shape in the form we have it now, the Temple had already been destroyed by Rome's scorched earth response to the first revolt.
Jewish Apocalyptic was meant to encourage the faithful who now suffer the evils of the present age, and to offer assurance that a moment of judgment and reckoning will soon arrive. Those listening to Mark for the first time are encouraged to maintain hope despite the seeming delay of the Son of Man, but be assured that come he will, and not only will he bring deliverance, but he will also be the One to whom an account must be given. So stay awake, keep alert, be vigilant and watchful in how you pattern your life. Which for Jesus means a life of repentance. Repentance is to be a way of life, not a one-time event.
Jesus' call for repentance is consistent with a biblical tradition's demand for change - change that arises from compassion, not contempt. The words used in the Bible for repentance mean to "turn around." The assumption is that something important and precious has been left behind and needs to be reclaimed. This Jesus calls the Kingdom of God, what some have termed The Great Economy, since God's vision for God's people has always concerned itself with the economy. "It's the economy, stupid," very well can be understood as a biblical imperative. So that repentance is an invitation to deconstruct what is wrong about our way of life and reconstruct a life characterized by the kind of justice and dignity God calls for repeatedly throughout the long history of the biblical narrative.
It is all too easy to see that the world which God created and declared as "good," even "very good," is now running off the rails - and that when this happens, people, who were created in God's image, suffer many indignities and depredations. As the gap between the haves and the have nots continues to grow, as the elected representatives tasked to make corrections deadlock even further, and as we seem to be escalating a militaristic stance toward the rest of the world, it seems clear that the call from Mark's Jesus for repentance is just as germane today as it was nearly 2,000 year ago. It is time once again to turn around and recall, remember, what we have left behind of God's vision for mankind.
It will be seen, years from now, that one of the great ironies of our time saw endless kiosks of books in what was called the Left Behind series of so-called modern day Christian apocalyptic which had little or no connection to the kind of apocalyptic vision Jesus spins out in the thirteenth chapter of Mark. Most especially since the series was born of a theology, Millerism,
which has claimed to know when the end of days will come and the Son of Man appear. Since October 22, 1844 until recently the day has been calculated and recalculated, set and re-set. One has to wonder how such devout and faithful people, and they certainly are, ignore our Lord's own words, "But about that day no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
So what has this to do with Advent and Christmas? Advent, adventus, means "coming." Advent is a time to re-set our sights, to turn back once again, to attempt to recover what has truly been left behind - which is not unbelievers as the popular imagination would have it. What has been left behind is our Lord's vision of the Kingdom of God, a vision based on nearly 3,000 years of biblical imagination - a vision based in justice and dignity - a vision that rejects the notion that power is truth, that violence of any kind can bring about righteousness.
Advent has also been characterized as a time of waiting - waiting for our Lord's return to set things right - to justify our attitude of Hope and our assurance that the day is near. But this is no waiting that connotes a sitting around resting on whatever laurels may be left. It is a waiting that is actively engaged in lives of justice and dignity for all people - not some people, not most people, but all people. When this truly breaks in on us it will no longer be business as usual!
Which means that our compassion ought to lead us to moral outrage at the ways in which the consumer driven culture of acquisition, and militaristic culture of violence work against all that God came to us as a baby in a manger to wake us up to the futility of these modes of so-called civilization.
Which means not just staying awake, but waking up! Waking up to our peculiar history, as a church, as a nation, as mankind. Much of what we hail as progress has come at the expense of grinding one people or another into dust.
Waking up out of our sleepwalking state of being is an invitation to turn back and look at our history to uncover the massive efforts of denial that have left us addicted to acquisition and violence. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Look at the signs of the times. See how we repeat over and over again the biblical sins of blindness, deafness and hardness of heart.
Then once we are awake, once we begin to turn back, see if in this waiting time we might actually hear what Mark's Jesus is really saying - what the call to discipleship truly entails. Only then will we be ready for the coming Day of the Lord. Only then will be truly know not only who we are, but whose we are: disciples of the Son of Man and the people of his Kingdom of shalom, justice and dignity for all people. If ever there was a time for Jewish Apocalyptic it is now. Thank God for opening our hearts to its vision this First Sunday of Advent. Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter's at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Keep Awake: Turn Back
It has been observed that we sleepwalk through much of life. The ritual and busyness of the familiar, the routine, carries us forward like an ever flowing stream. School started in August. Halloween and Thanksgiving have come and gone. The ritual observances of Christmas have begun with the consumer driven madness of Black Friday, now become Black Thursday and Small Business Saturday!
Each of these "end-times" has a procedural set of expectations, rituals, traditions which we can predictably sleepwalk our way through year after year after year - business as usual.
Then in the midst of our ritual march toward Christmas intrudes this odd bit of scripture from Mark - Mark, who has no birth story of Jesus and for that matter no resurrection appearance either. It is called the Little Apocalypse. Jewish Apocalyptic literature plays a key role in hard times. Scenes like this one are meant to buck up a people weary of having the goodness of God's creation disrupted by the vagaries of occupation, exile, social and economic chaos and disintegration, militaristic solutions and the like.
Throughout the history of Israel, the need for apocalyptic was a regular occurrence. At the time of Jesus the country was under the military occupation of Rome, and the rigid demands of the aristocratic religious leadership of the Temple. Not long after Jesus the people attempted two unsuccessful revolts. By the time Mark's gospel had taken shape in the form we have it now, the Temple had already been destroyed by Rome's scorched earth response to the first revolt.
Jewish Apocalyptic was meant to encourage the faithful who now suffer the evils of the present age, and to offer assurance that a moment of judgment and reckoning will soon arrive. Those listening to Mark for the first time are encouraged to maintain hope despite the seeming delay of the Son of Man, but be assured that come he will, and not only will he bring deliverance, but he will also be the One to whom an account must be given. So stay awake, keep alert, be vigilant and watchful in how you pattern your life. Which for Jesus means a life of repentance. Repentance is to be a way of life, not a one-time event.
Jesus' call for repentance is consistent with a biblical tradition's demand for change - change that arises from compassion, not contempt. The words used in the Bible for repentance mean to "turn around." The assumption is that something important and precious has been left behind and needs to be reclaimed. This Jesus calls the Kingdom of God, what some have termed The Great Economy, since God's vision for God's people has always concerned itself with the economy. "It's the economy, stupid," very well can be understood as a biblical imperative. So that repentance is an invitation to deconstruct what is wrong about our way of life and reconstruct a life characterized by the kind of justice and dignity God calls for repeatedly throughout the long history of the biblical narrative.
It is all too easy to see that the world which God created and declared as "good," even "very good," is now running off the rails - and that when this happens, people, who were created in God's image, suffer many indignities and depredations. As the gap between the haves and the have nots continues to grow, as the elected representatives tasked to make corrections deadlock even further, and as we seem to be escalating a militaristic stance toward the rest of the world, it seems clear that the call from Mark's Jesus for repentance is just as germane today as it was nearly 2,000 year ago. It is time once again to turn around and recall, remember, what we have left behind of God's vision for mankind.
It will be seen, years from now, that one of the great ironies of our time saw endless kiosks of books in what was called the Left Behind series of so-called modern day Christian apocalyptic which had little or no connection to the kind of apocalyptic vision Jesus spins out in the thirteenth chapter of Mark. Most especially since the series was born of a theology, Millerism,
which has claimed to know when the end of days will come and the Son of Man appear. Since October 22, 1844 until recently the day has been calculated and recalculated, set and re-set. One has to wonder how such devout and faithful people, and they certainly are, ignore our Lord's own words, "But about that day no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
So what has this to do with Advent and Christmas? Advent, adventus, means "coming." Advent is a time to re-set our sights, to turn back once again, to attempt to recover what has truly been left behind - which is not unbelievers as the popular imagination would have it. What has been left behind is our Lord's vision of the Kingdom of God, a vision based on nearly 3,000 years of biblical imagination - a vision based in justice and dignity - a vision that rejects the notion that power is truth, that violence of any kind can bring about righteousness.
Advent has also been characterized as a time of waiting - waiting for our Lord's return to set things right - to justify our attitude of Hope and our assurance that the day is near. But this is no waiting that connotes a sitting around resting on whatever laurels may be left. It is a waiting that is actively engaged in lives of justice and dignity for all people - not some people, not most people, but all people. When this truly breaks in on us it will no longer be business as usual!
Which means that our compassion ought to lead us to moral outrage at the ways in which the consumer driven culture of acquisition, and militaristic culture of violence work against all that God came to us as a baby in a manger to wake us up to the futility of these modes of so-called civilization.
Which means not just staying awake, but waking up! Waking up to our peculiar history, as a church, as a nation, as mankind. Much of what we hail as progress has come at the expense of grinding one people or another into dust.
Waking up out of our sleepwalking state of being is an invitation to turn back and look at our history to uncover the massive efforts of denial that have left us addicted to acquisition and violence. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Look at the signs of the times. See how we repeat over and over again the biblical sins of blindness, deafness and hardness of heart.
Then once we are awake, once we begin to turn back, see if in this waiting time we might actually hear what Mark's Jesus is really saying - what the call to discipleship truly entails. Only then will we be ready for the coming Day of the Lord. Only then will be truly know not only who we are, but whose we are: disciples of the Son of Man and the people of his Kingdom of shalom, justice and dignity for all people. If ever there was a time for Jewish Apocalyptic it is now. Thank God for opening our hearts to its vision this First Sunday of Advent. Amen.
In Memoriam - Brent Peddicord
In Memoriam
E. Brent Peddicord
Ecclesiastes 3:1-11/The Revelation to John 21:3b-5/John 14:1-3
Death, the most assured human attribute, remains the most mysterious. So it is that humans for countless millennia have stopped all activity to ponder the life and death of a loved one as a way of delving into the very mysteries of life and death.
The loss of someone we know and love and cherish takes us away from the busyness of our day- to-day existence so that in a sense time stops. We stop. And traditionally we gather as a community to stop whatever we are doing and to simply be with one another for a brief time away from all other time.
Ecclesiastes, frequently translated as The Preacher, knows about time. There is a time for everything under the sun. This is one of those times.
And in the Revelation to John, the mysterious eternal quality of time is referenced as Alpha and Omega, the totality of all that is, seen and unseen, quite literally everything from A to Z in our alphabet – that which can be perceived, and that which must be taken on faith. All that is emanates from a single point, a single person identified as God in our text. We are his people, he is our God – a God like no other, a God whose very essence, whose very quality is to be with us at moments like this when time seems to stop, to wipe away our tears and to make all things new.
Jesus, speaking to his closest friends the night before he is to die, gathers them to prepare them for the inevitable.
Like most of us here, they protest, “How can this be? Where are you going? We will come with you!”
Note how Jesus, the one who is about to die a cruel death is the one comforting them. Jesus replies in metaphor – in my father’s house are many mansions. The Greek text translates more like way stations – a stopping place on one’s journey, one's way from point A to point B. A resting place. Only these way stations are of God and with God – the God who himself is with us, wiping away our tears, has prepared a particular place for each and every one of us.
Jesus’ assertion is unequivocal – there are no requirements, no conditions, no need for beliefs, faith or any other prerequisites. A place has been prepared, and God himself, Jesus, promises to come again and receive us so that where he is, we too shall be.
As a dear friend and former Jesuit has put it, “We come from Love, we return to Love, and Love is all around.” The heart of God is Love. And as Jesus constantly tries to remind us, the time is now. Time is the temple of eternity. We say, “Time is of the essence,” and perhaps we are not conscious of just how true that really is - for time is the essence of God, of God's son, and God's Love.
Brent had a special relationship with time. As most of you know, he had a lifelong interest in clocks and became a serious collector and historian in his later years. While he appreciated the clocks for their mechanical intricacies, the woodworking of their cases, his focus as a collector was on preservation, not simply acquisition. He saw himself not so much as an owner or as an investor, but as a steward. He enjoyed spending time doing research and traveling to auctions, but it was his steady devotion to clocks – the regular winding and dusting, the timely oiling or repair – that marked him as a collector. His interest was in caring for them while they were in his possession so they could be appreciated by future generations. His hope was that each clock would one day leave his custody in working order and in better shape than when he acquired it.
His steady, reliable caretaking habits also marked him as a son, a husband, a father, a brother, and an employee. He was someone who could be counted on to take care of things. Brent knew how to look to the past for guidance and how to look at the future so he could plan for it, but he lived his life in the present and understood how the accumulation of small, daily acts added up to a life that mattered.
It is a life that has called us to stop and allow ourselves simply to be in this present moment – to remember Brent, to remember his continual acts of stewardship, and perhaps to become aware that there is a larger presence in the here and now of time that we rarely take time to acknowledge.
We come from Love, we return to Love and Love is all around. Brent has made the round-trip journey from and to Love. Brent was very much a tangible and palpable expression of that Love being all around. He could sense it in the very pulse of time, with each tick and each tock. He preserved the eternal presence in time so that we might come to appreciate it and know it ourselves.
We have only this brief time together to contemplate these things, and yet that shall be more than enough time to bring us closer to God, closer to one another and closer to our selves.
The late Henri Nouwen, renowned priest, teacher and writer, in reflecting on his mother’s death, writes the following:
"There is a time of waiting for the Spirit of truth to come, and woe unto me if, by forgetting her, I prevent her from doing God’s work in me. I sensed that something much more than a filial act of remembering was at stake, much more than an honoring of my dead mother, much more than a holding on to her beautiful example. Very specifically, what was at stake was the life of the Spirit in me.
To remember her does not mean telling her story over and over again to my friends, nor does it mean pictures on the wall or a stone on her grave; it does not even mean constantly thinking about her. No. It means making her a participant in God’s ongoing work of redemption by allowing her to dispel in me a little more of my darkness and lead me a little closer to the light. In these weeks of mourning she died in me more and more every day, making it impossible for me to cling to her as my mother. Yet, by letting her go I did not lose her. Rather, I found that she is closer to me than ever. In and through the Spirit of Christ, she indeed is becoming a part of my very being." p.60 In Memoriam, Henri Nouwen
The light Nouwen speaks of shines on Brent – the light of the Paschal Candle, first lit in the darkness of Easter Eve, the Light of Christ. Saint John says that His light is the life of all men, and that no darkness has overcome it. Brent has become a part of the essence of this light.
As the Preacher known to us as Ecclesiastes makes certain, none of us can possibly know very much of what lies between Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. But we can be those people who are assured that now Brent knows in ways that he could only have imagined for the brief time he lived among us. What that mansion, that way station, that has been prepared for his arrival looks like we can only imagine – but it seems almost certain that there will be at least one clock for him to ponder, to care for, to preserve and to repair as we continue our journey to Love ourselves.
Even now, Brent is becoming a part of our very being in new and important ways. We are promised that in death life is changed, not ended. And sooner than we think, wherever he is, we too shall be, united in time eternal – each and every tick of the clock brings us closer and closer still. For that, and for a life faithfully lived as a steward of things and relationships precious in this world, we give thanks. Amen.
E. Brent Peddicord
Ecclesiastes 3:1-11/The Revelation to John 21:3b-5/John 14:1-3
Death, the most assured human attribute, remains the most mysterious. So it is that humans for countless millennia have stopped all activity to ponder the life and death of a loved one as a way of delving into the very mysteries of life and death.
The loss of someone we know and love and cherish takes us away from the busyness of our day- to-day existence so that in a sense time stops. We stop. And traditionally we gather as a community to stop whatever we are doing and to simply be with one another for a brief time away from all other time.
Ecclesiastes, frequently translated as The Preacher, knows about time. There is a time for everything under the sun. This is one of those times.
And in the Revelation to John, the mysterious eternal quality of time is referenced as Alpha and Omega, the totality of all that is, seen and unseen, quite literally everything from A to Z in our alphabet – that which can be perceived, and that which must be taken on faith. All that is emanates from a single point, a single person identified as God in our text. We are his people, he is our God – a God like no other, a God whose very essence, whose very quality is to be with us at moments like this when time seems to stop, to wipe away our tears and to make all things new.
Jesus, speaking to his closest friends the night before he is to die, gathers them to prepare them for the inevitable.
Like most of us here, they protest, “How can this be? Where are you going? We will come with you!”
Note how Jesus, the one who is about to die a cruel death is the one comforting them. Jesus replies in metaphor – in my father’s house are many mansions. The Greek text translates more like way stations – a stopping place on one’s journey, one's way from point A to point B. A resting place. Only these way stations are of God and with God – the God who himself is with us, wiping away our tears, has prepared a particular place for each and every one of us.
Jesus’ assertion is unequivocal – there are no requirements, no conditions, no need for beliefs, faith or any other prerequisites. A place has been prepared, and God himself, Jesus, promises to come again and receive us so that where he is, we too shall be.
As a dear friend and former Jesuit has put it, “We come from Love, we return to Love, and Love is all around.” The heart of God is Love. And as Jesus constantly tries to remind us, the time is now. Time is the temple of eternity. We say, “Time is of the essence,” and perhaps we are not conscious of just how true that really is - for time is the essence of God, of God's son, and God's Love.
Brent had a special relationship with time. As most of you know, he had a lifelong interest in clocks and became a serious collector and historian in his later years. While he appreciated the clocks for their mechanical intricacies, the woodworking of their cases, his focus as a collector was on preservation, not simply acquisition. He saw himself not so much as an owner or as an investor, but as a steward. He enjoyed spending time doing research and traveling to auctions, but it was his steady devotion to clocks – the regular winding and dusting, the timely oiling or repair – that marked him as a collector. His interest was in caring for them while they were in his possession so they could be appreciated by future generations. His hope was that each clock would one day leave his custody in working order and in better shape than when he acquired it.
His steady, reliable caretaking habits also marked him as a son, a husband, a father, a brother, and an employee. He was someone who could be counted on to take care of things. Brent knew how to look to the past for guidance and how to look at the future so he could plan for it, but he lived his life in the present and understood how the accumulation of small, daily acts added up to a life that mattered.
It is a life that has called us to stop and allow ourselves simply to be in this present moment – to remember Brent, to remember his continual acts of stewardship, and perhaps to become aware that there is a larger presence in the here and now of time that we rarely take time to acknowledge.
We come from Love, we return to Love and Love is all around. Brent has made the round-trip journey from and to Love. Brent was very much a tangible and palpable expression of that Love being all around. He could sense it in the very pulse of time, with each tick and each tock. He preserved the eternal presence in time so that we might come to appreciate it and know it ourselves.
We have only this brief time together to contemplate these things, and yet that shall be more than enough time to bring us closer to God, closer to one another and closer to our selves.
The late Henri Nouwen, renowned priest, teacher and writer, in reflecting on his mother’s death, writes the following:
"There is a time of waiting for the Spirit of truth to come, and woe unto me if, by forgetting her, I prevent her from doing God’s work in me. I sensed that something much more than a filial act of remembering was at stake, much more than an honoring of my dead mother, much more than a holding on to her beautiful example. Very specifically, what was at stake was the life of the Spirit in me.
To remember her does not mean telling her story over and over again to my friends, nor does it mean pictures on the wall or a stone on her grave; it does not even mean constantly thinking about her. No. It means making her a participant in God’s ongoing work of redemption by allowing her to dispel in me a little more of my darkness and lead me a little closer to the light. In these weeks of mourning she died in me more and more every day, making it impossible for me to cling to her as my mother. Yet, by letting her go I did not lose her. Rather, I found that she is closer to me than ever. In and through the Spirit of Christ, she indeed is becoming a part of my very being." p.60 In Memoriam, Henri Nouwen
The light Nouwen speaks of shines on Brent – the light of the Paschal Candle, first lit in the darkness of Easter Eve, the Light of Christ. Saint John says that His light is the life of all men, and that no darkness has overcome it. Brent has become a part of the essence of this light.
As the Preacher known to us as Ecclesiastes makes certain, none of us can possibly know very much of what lies between Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. But we can be those people who are assured that now Brent knows in ways that he could only have imagined for the brief time he lived among us. What that mansion, that way station, that has been prepared for his arrival looks like we can only imagine – but it seems almost certain that there will be at least one clock for him to ponder, to care for, to preserve and to repair as we continue our journey to Love ourselves.
Even now, Brent is becoming a part of our very being in new and important ways. We are promised that in death life is changed, not ended. And sooner than we think, wherever he is, we too shall be, united in time eternal – each and every tick of the clock brings us closer and closer still. For that, and for a life faithfully lived as a steward of things and relationships precious in this world, we give thanks. Amen.
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