The foundation of a life that can not only endure wickedness but transform it is a life built on the love Christ calls of you, the same love that already holds you forever.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Seventh Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 7 C
Texts: Luke 6:27-38 (adding 39-49 from Lect. 8 C); Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“Do not be provoked by evildoers,” we sang today in the psalm.

And then we sang, “leave rage alone; it leads only to evil.” Because, Psalm 37 says, “in a little while the wicked shall be no more, but the lowly shall possess the land and delight in abundance of peace. God will rescue them.”

Really? That’s what we’re told today? Every time the Bible says those who do evil will be dealt with by God, we wonder: When does that ever happen? Most seem to get away with it. And we’re not supposed to get angry at that?

And Jesus isn’t helpful today, saying, “The Most High is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.”

When so much wickedness is happening around us, so many are being hurt, not just here now but around the world due to our rulers in Washington, how can we not be provoked and angry? And wish that those who are doing all these things would get what we think they deserve?

But instead of answering that, Jesus looks right at us and asks, “why are you so concerned about the sin of other people?”

In these familiar words about ignoring the log in our own eye while obsessing over the speck in our neighbor’s eye, Jesus says, “check yourself first and clean that up.” Never mind if we don’t think what we do compares to rounding up thousands of good people and sending them to detention camps, or randomly firing thousands upon thousands, leaving them in unemployment and despair. Or targeting those who are different from whatever ridiculous norm those in charge think is the only way for a human to be. Or risking the lives of children and the weak by acting against hard earned scientific and medical wisdom.

Surely we’re not that bad, are we, Jesus?

But Jesus doesn’t seem interested in having us compare sins. If you wish to follow me, he says, pay attention to your walk, your life. Are you being Christ in your love and in your life? You can’t control what others do. You can do something about how you live faithfully, he says.

But the path Christ shows today isn’t just hard. In these times it could also make you angry.

Love your enemies, Jesus says today. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. Give to anyone who asks of you. And that love and blessing and good also applies to any who hurt others.

This is as frustrating as those other words we began with. Not only must we forget about hoping God’s going to pay back people for evil they do, and remember that God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked, now we have to actually love them? Pray for them? Do good to them? Give them whatever they want? Living these words isn’t just hard. It feels wrong. It feels like acquiescing to wickedness and evil and letting it win. Letting vulnerable people be destroyed.

So this is your great challenge to your trust in Christ and following as a disciple. You know you’re fully loved by God forever and always in this life and in a life to come. Nothing can stop that love.

Trusting God’s love enough to walk this path that seems counter to everything that makes sense? Little wonder that at times in his ministry disciples just walked away from Jesus, saying “this is too hard.”

But what if Christ knows something you don’t?

What if changing your heart to love enemies and pray for the wicked can transform you into God’s very heart in this world? Wouldn’t that be something? And if one by one, person by person, the Spirit transformed hearts this way, Christ’s way, to walk this hard path, can you not see how that would change the world for good?

We can hardly argue that our usual human way of dealing with evil – power, retaliation, hatred, violence – has created a better world. Why not try Christ’s way? Look for the logs in our own eyes that lead us to anger and despair and hatred and ask the Spirit to help us forgive and love and pray for all, even the ungrateful and the wicked?

Those disciples who left Jesus because following was too hard were pretty honest.

But they missed the whole point of Jesus’ coming. In coming as one of us the Triune God means to draw us all into God’s way of seeing, acting, loving, so the world can be healed. If Christ’s path is hard it’s only because it’s so counter to the way we’re used to behave and see. But it’s the only way to life and hope. Look at history, at people of faith who have walked this path. You’ll see wonder and joy appear like flowers in the desert. You’ll see healing in the midst of suffering, hope in the midst of despair.

And Christ promises today that if you build your life on this foundation of love, with all of this community around you also putting down their roots to this bedrock, all the while praying that the Holy Spirit change your heart and thereby change your life and thereby change your behavior and thereby change the world, you will see there is no storm, no challenge, no fire, no flood, no drought, no evil, no wickedness that can knock down you or anyone else so built on Christ.

And know this: following Christ’s path this way is absolutely not acquiescing to the wickedness and saying “do what you will.” The call on Christ’s path is still and always to care for those who are hungry and thirsty, those without clothes or homes, those sick and imprisoned, because they are Christ.

We pray for those who do wickedness and love them, while working as hard as we can to undo their wickedness by our love and care for those who are hurt. We ask God’s blessing on those who mock and curse and threaten others, while working as hard as we can to bring healing and hope to all who are so abused.

And as we and millions more are so grounded and changed, God’s healing can finally reach everywhere.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

 

We share God’s vision of our neighbors and our world in this community and are strengthened for our work as Christ by each other.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 6 C
Texts: Luke 6:17-26

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

I speak in defense of bubbles.

The conventional view of our polarized country is that people live in their own bubbles. They hear one point of view, gather with people sharing that view, and treat anyone who sees differently with disdain and often hatred. Left or right, people name and decry this reality of our modern world.

For good reason. If you put on blinders and ignore or hate anyone who differs from you, you’ll have a warped world view. Everyone needs to understand other points of view, find common ground, test their news sources and influences for bias and for factual truth, or we’re in trouble.

And yet it is a tremendous blessing to be in this community of faith, who hears Jesus’ words every week, and so sees the world and people as God does. Clearly some people, even some bearing Christ’s name, are willing to crush and destroy vulnerable people, whether LGBTQ or immigrant or poor or different in any way, for their own power and their own gain. So to be with a community who instead sees the face of God in every child, every person, who sees even strangers as neighbors worthy of love, is a huge relief when trying to navigate this frightening and broken and hateful world.

Clearly God’s Son today says the Triune God’s way of seeing is radically different from the common way of the world.

To God, those who are poor are blessed, because they’re in the heart of God’s reign, where we try to share all we have so none go without. Those who are rich are warned that wealth is not a sign of God’s approval and separates them from God’s family, leaving them without consolation. The world says that’s nonsense. Jesus says, well, that’s how God sees things.

To God, those who are hungry are blessed because in God’s reign food is shared and all are filled. And those who fill themselves up and trample others to get more are warned this is the path to a hunger no wealth or power can ever fill. The world says that’s nonsense. Jesus says, well, that’s how God sees things.

To God, those who weep are blessed because in God’s reign they find people who hold them, love them, share their tears. They find hope and home. And those who won’t feel the pain of another person, who laugh while people are caged or marginalized, are warned they’re isolating themselves into a life that leads only to grief. The world says that’s nonsense. Jesus says, well, that’s how God sees things.

The Triune God sees dramatically opposite to the way the world does. God values weakness, not strength, love, not power, and dies to create life. But we live in the world, so it’s sometimes hard to remember this. We’re tempted to side with those in power, or to secure our wealth, and ignore the pain of others as we scrabble for our own security.

And that’s where our community is a blessing.

Here we see God’s way together, and help each other live and act in it. Here, where love of God and love of neighbor are our highest ethical values, we can’t separate our trust in God’s love from our care for all people. So if I struggle to see as God sees, you all model and witness to me that way of seeing. And I remember. When you struggle to live as Christ, with the sacrifices that path asks, people here model and witness to you a life-giving way of being for all God’s children. And you’re encouraged.

We’re not in a bubble here to ignore other points of view and claim we’re right and others are wrong. We’re in this together to remember God’s way together. To remember and share God’s point of view.

And when we despair to see people treating others as garbage, risking others for their own needs, threatening vulnerable people and seeing them as nothing, we come together as a community and rejoice that we’re with people who do see the face of God in every person. Who trust that caring for the hungry, thirsty, and naked ones, the strangers, the sick, the imprisoned ones, is caring for Christ. When we think that the world’s gone mad, here we’re reassured there are still many who seek love and justice for all.

And this isn’t a question of picking political sides.

Christians of both parties and no parties have often found ways to agree on what’s important, if sometimes not on the policies to fix it. For example, we’ve agreed God cares for those who are hungry, therefore we must. Different political parties had different ways of addressing that, but sometimes even found compromise and common ground for the good of all.

But our current leaders, elected by a majority of those who chose to vote, are in it only for themselves, and disregard not only common decency but the very rule of law that holds our nation together. They argue for keeping politics out of church, and out of sermons in the National Cathedral, while putting their view of church into politics, reshaping the government. We can’t pretend this is business as usual.

But maybe this is a time that finally shows us the importance of living as a Christian.

Maybe now we find out what Jesus means. Many of us have lived privileged lives without facing adversity for practicing our faith. Choosing to act as Christ or not without many real consequences. Jesus’ warnings of rejection and being hated for following used to feel as if they didn’t apply to us. Not anymore.

Bishop Budde’s sermon was something you’d hear at Mount Olive and any number of our sibling congregations any time. She took Jesus’ call to love others seriously, as we do. She spoke of the joy of God’s diversity and finding unity in welcoming all. And the really offensive part apparently was simply asking the president to show mercy, to listen to all who were afraid and vulnerable. All values we share in this community.

Now, maybe, these values put us up against the wall. We have a chance to stand up for those being hurt, we’re called to risk so that the vulnerable are protected, and we might actually face adversity for being a Christian for the first time in our lives. That’s good. It feels good to face a Christian life Jesus actually envisioned, where we’re not in power and not controlling but a minority caring for those God sees as important and most in need. Those this community sees as important and most in need.

You are God’s beloved community.

And I thank God for you. For sharing God’s vision of the world together. For the witness you make in your daily lives to God’s love for all, the risks you’re taking to be Christ’s love. For the urgency so many here have to find the Christly path for Mount Olive in all this.

You are not alone because you have this community. We are not alone because there are thousands of communities of all faiths who share God’s love for all and want to risk being that love for all. And if someone hates us for this, reviles us, well, now we’re really having a good time. Because finally we’re acting enough like Christ to rile up the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

God’s freedom and redemption are meant for all people, and we’re called to be a part of it.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Presentation of Our Lord
Texts: Psalm 84; Luke 2:22-40

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

We once had a bat in church in a former parish.

Bats are wonderful, but swooping down over worshippers’ heads, veering around the altar, these behaviors raise anxiety. So Psalm 84, which began our liturgy, is confusing. It delights in finding refuge, healing, and hope in God’s house, like finding an oasis in the desert. But then the psalmist gushes: “even the sparrow has found a home [here], and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, by the side of your altars, O God.”

I’ve never met an altar guild who’d be thrilled at a bird’s nest adorning the side of the altar. Having birds take shelter in here isn’t an obvious sign to us of God’s love and care.

Maybe it should be. Here we find refuge and healing, sanctuary from a world of fear and danger. Here we find community and welcome, a place to rest, to pray, to be with God in God’s house.

But this psalm says our refuge in God is refuge when everyone has it. Even birds find safe harbor in the Temple, that’s how you know it’s God’s house. No one’s safe until everyone is safe.

Today we celebrate Jesus’ presentation in that Temple.

This coming to the temple wasn’t about refuge. It was a normal thing for Jewish families then, honoring tradition and God’s law. But two servants of God meet this new family and everything changes. One, Simeon, declares this baby to be God’s Christ, God’s Messiah, a light to non-Jews, and the glory of Israel. Simeon says that in Jesus all peoples are in God’s care. No one is left behind. And Simeon rightly says this means Jesus will cause problems, will be opposed, will expose people’s inner thoughts about God and the world.

Then Anna speaks about this child to “all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem,” Luke says. Naturally. She’s spent decades living in the Temple, centering her life on the God of Israel. But she seems to affirm only half of Simeon’s promise: this child will be the one to free Jerusalem. The glory of God’s people Israel, as Simeon said.

But Anna’s saying something very different, that, once we see all Jesus did and taught, will challenge us to re-think the whole idea of redemption and freedom. What it looks like, how God will accomplish it.

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, and if we’re honest, throughout Christian history, there’s been tragic confusion about God’s intentions and plan.

Anna’s people, “those looking for the redemption of Jerusalem,” could’ve hoped for to overthrow Roman occupation and politically free God’s people. This hope dogged Jesus even after the resurrection. When the Emmaus couple talk with the risen Jesus unawares, they sadly say, “we’d hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” To free us. In Acts 1, the disciples still asked if now he was going to restore the nation.

Christians have followed this path far too often. Whenever we get political power, Christians and Christian leaders try to cement control over it, assuming if we’re running things in Christ’s name it’s all good. But it’s usually led to destruction, oppression, slaughter, discrimination, inquisition, war, violence. Inevitably in world history if Christians make Jesus a political Messiah, trying to rule in his name, we’ll be doing some kind of evil.

Including today. Right wing Christianity in this country barely acknowledges the teachings of Jesus, the center of his mission and call, favoring making him a god-mascot whose image gives them permission to be in charge. To control others in his name, to do whatever benefits them with impunity and with the passion of believing God on their side. What they’re doing is an old, old game, using Christ as permission to act as power-hungry people, to cover up well-known human desires and need for control.

But at Emmaus Jesus doesn’t answer the couple, “Now I’m alive, I’ll take over.”

He opens their hearts to the Scriptures instead, to show what God’s plan actually is. And when the disciples want him to restore Israel he says to wait in the city for the Spirit to come upon them. Not so they can control others. So they can witness to God’s mission and love for the world.

The mission and love that is evident every time you open God’s Word. God’s care for those who are poor and oppressed fills the words of the whole Bible. God’s welcome to all who are outsiders, aliens, strangers, outcast, is everywhere. God’s healing grace for all who are broken, sad, grieving, sick, in pain, is central to God’s will throughout the whole of Scripture.

That’s what redemption means for God. The redemption of Jerusalem, Anna’s proclamation, is always only part of God’s promise. In the Torah, in the prophets, in the psalm today, in Simeon’s words and Jesus’ ministry, Israel is the start and all God’s people are the final goal.

And it’s not political freedom or power God promises. It’s freedom, redemption, to be the loving people God made in the first place. People who embody God’s care, God’s welcome, God’s healing grace. Who have the same no boundaries approach to any who are in need. Who are shaped by the Spirit to the same self-giving, vulnerable love the Triune God has repeatedly shown to the world.

Until everyone is safe, no one is safe. Until everyone knows God’s love, no one knows love.

And you know that, even when you come here to God’s house for refuge and healing. Even though you wish some days you could just make sure you were OK and didn’t have to think about all who are hurting and being hurt. Because as a pastor once said to me, “Once you know the grace of God is yours, how can you live knowing there are others who don’t know this for themselves?”

Even birds are welcome to nest in God’s house. All God’s creatures need to know God’s love. Only then can God’s dream of justice, love, and peace for all come to be.

What this will look like for our ministry here together, or for your own walk in Christ we need to talk about and listen and discern in these hard days. The answers will not always be obvious, but they will come. They won’t always be easy, but we are assured God’s Spirit will guide us and hold us in all things.

And little step by little step we’ll see with wonder how God’s home is broadening and embracing more and more into life and hope and justice and healing. Until our eyes, like Simeon’s, are able to see God’s salvation come into being.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Christ’s love ligaments us together as one Body, inseparable by us or anyone else, with diverse gifts and realities sent by the Spirit in mission to the world to bring healing and life.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 3 C
Texts: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a (adding 13:1-13); Luke 4:14-21

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Religion isn’t much in favor these days.

With so much violence and hatred levied by religious people in the world, including lots of Christians, many simply reject the idea of being a part of any religion. For awhile now polls have shown a growing number of people who identify as “spiritual, not religious.” Given the history of how religious people have acted, created destructive institutions, and harmed so many, it’s hard to blame anyone for walking away.

And yet here we are, openly Christian people, gathering to worship a God who created and loves all things. We’re clearly part of a religion, and yet we’d say we’re also spiritual. How is our faith practice life-giving for us – and, we hope, for those we care for in Christ’s name – if it’s part of a religion?

Maybe we should start with the word.

The root origins of the word “religion” are unclear, and there are various ancient theories. But in the third and fourth centuries Christian teachers St. Augustine^[1] and Lactantius^[2] argued that it derives from re-ligio, literally to “reconnect.” (Ligio gives us our word ligament.) Religion calls us to re-ligament, to remember what binds us to God, connects us to each other and to the world.

And suddenly we’re talking like Paul today. What if the word “religion” reminded us of this Body of Christ, of the ligaments that make us inseparable from each other and from God? Doesn’t that sound very different, maybe hopeful?

That’s the power of Paul’s vision of the Body of Christ.

The eye can’t say to the hand “we don’t need you,” or worse, the ear can’t say to itself, “I don’t belong in this body.” Paul says none of us can exclude ourselves or others from Christ’s Body. A body can’t be separated and still exist.

And Paul doesn’t mean “don’t separate yourself or exclude someone else.” He means “you can’t. I can’t.” It’s impossible. The Spirit has joined us together in this Body in baptism with each other and all Christians, and Paul’s promise is that in Christ we cannot separate ourselves, even if we wanted to.

And Paul envisioned a unity of this Body transcending diversities within the Body.

We see him call all his congregations to understand this vision. A unity that doesn’t wash away the diversity, melting it down into sameness. No, the diversity of the members is critical to the life of the Body, and needs to be honored, delighted in, respected. And it’s more than just diversity of spiritual gifts. Often that’s all we hear in these verses. You’re good at some things, I’m good at others, we’re all needed. And of course the varied gifts we have that differ are important.

But there’s an existential diversity deeper than that, which is what caused problems with this vision in all Paul’s congregations. In verse 13 of chapter 12 Paul reminds that in one Spirit they were all baptized into one body – Jews, Greeks, slaves, free. It’s not just their gifts that differ. It’s their culture, their language, their traditions, their political status, their ethnicity. Eyes, in Paul’s example, are completely different from ears. Hands and feet have different structures and realities. The diversity in the Body goes to the root of who you are, who I am, no matter the category. Today we might add gender fluidity and diversity of sexual orientation to Paul’s list, among others. And in his letters Paul repeatedly says those differences are beautiful and vital to the whole Body.

But over all this diversity is our oneness in Christ. Never can our diversity cause us to split away, to exclude others, or to assume we don’t belong.

And it’s because of the ligaments that bind us, the word religion says.

And the ligaments are Christ’s love.

The love Christ Jesus repeatedly commands of us as the fulfilling of all God’s law. The love of the Triune God Christ revealed at the cross and empty tomb. That’s what joins us. That’s how Jews and Greeks can be one together and still be Jews and Greeks. How straight and queer folks, trans and cisgendered folks, can belong to each other and rejoice in each other’s reality. How people of all colors and cultures are joined together while embracing and respecting each other’s beauty and grace.

Christ’s love ligaments us together. A love that doesn’t erase another’s truth but embraces it. A love that joins astonishingly different people into one Body, one mission, one grace, one hope for the world.

A non-negotiable love in this Body that is patient and kind. Never boastful, arrogant, or rude. Never insisting on its own way. Rejoicing in the truth, not in things that are wrong. A love that bears, trusts, hopes, endures all things.

These ligaments bind you and me together in this community, and bind us to the Body of Christ around the world. And because ligaments also help the body move, these ligaments of love empower what this Body of Christ is meant to be in this world.

The same Spirit Jesus claims today is the Spirit poured out on you and me that ligaments us into one Body.

So our mission is the same as Jesus’: to bring good news to those who are poor, proclaim release to those who are captives, help those who cannot see to see, and free those who are oppressed.

This won’t be easy. As our sister Bishop Mariann Budde found, when you ask for mercy, love, and graciousness to those most vulnerable, you face criticism, scorn, and hatred. In these days we should expect that if we act as Christ’s Body to protect the vulnerable and the fearful, to stand for those who are being trampled, we will also face blowback. Jesus anticipated that, saying that you are blessed if “people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad – they always do that to the prophets,” he said. (Matthew 5:11-12)

See that’s the other grace of being in the Body: the ligaments of Christ’s love that bind us to people like Bishop Budde, to each other, to all those protecting and offering mercy and hope, cannot be broken by anyone else, either. Together, in Christ, in the power of the Spirit, with all our diverse truths, realities, and gifts, we can do amazing things as one Body for the healing of God’s world.

And if that’s a gift that the word religion can remind us of daily, I’m not so eager to let go of it.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

[1] St. Augustine (354 – 430 CE), City of God X.4 (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120110.htm)
[2] Lucius Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325 CE), Divine Institutes, IV.28 (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07014.htm)